On Saturday, October 1, motorists on the Christiaan de Wet Road off-ramp from Hendrik Potgieter Road, near Clearwater Mall, were allegedly harassed by an unknown male with a knife-like object.
According to eye-witness, Elemore van der Merwe and her partner, the man was of average length with medium length dreadlocks. “His clothes appeared dirty – as if he rolled in sand,” elaborated van der Merwe.
She went on to explain that the incident took place just after 13:00. “We drove during load-shedding to drop off our helper at Makro so that she can get a taxi,” explained van der Merwe,
“We decided to take the off-ramp that goes onto Christiaan de Wet Road. The male, with wild hair, jumped out with a black sharp object in his left hand. He wore dark clothes and his pants looked like those wide hippie pants.”
Van der Merwe and her partner simply kept on driving and scared him off “by swerving towards the man as if he was going to drive into him.”
She explained that the man kept running after the car on the passenger side of the vehicle until the car reached a fast enough speed for him not to keep up.
When discussing the unidentified object in the man’s hand, van der Merwe explained that it was a black sharp object.
“I’m not 100% sure if it was something he carved himself or bought. The size was big enough for it to be noticeable,” she continued.
“I called the emergency number where an operator asked me what department I was trying to reach and I asked for the Honeydew Police Department. The operator put me through where I waited for at least three minutes for someone to answer, if I remember correctly it was a male operator. I assume he couldn’t hear me as the call ended soon after I spoke,” she said when asked if she reported the incident.
“After that I tried to call one of the local security companies at least twice, but my calls failed as my phone said I had no service even though the power was restored.”
Van der Merwe explained that she posted a warning to fellow motorists on various Facebook community groups as that was on of the only ways she could contact people without signal.
Ward Councillor Zoné Hughes commented on Van der Merwe’s Facebook post by saying that she will communicate with JMPD in connection with the incident, adding that she’s aware of the problem at the Hendrik Potgieter Road off-ramp.
The Northsider reached out to Honeydew police spokesperson Captain Balan Muthan in regards with the incident on Saturday, October 1.
At the time of publishing the police have yet to comment on the incident. As soon as more information becomes available the community will be updated.
