Resident shot at during robbery but no docket opened
Man has to answer 10111's questions while bullets fly.
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A resident of Robertson Street, Christy du Plessis is not only traumatised after being shot at during a house robbery, but also unhappy with the police’s service.
Yesterday (2 June) at about 1pm Du Plessis heard a commotion in his neighbour’s yard. When he looked through the window he saw an old white Mazda 323 sedan parked outside his neighbour’s gate. He went out to investigate and as he approached the vehicle he saw that someone was trying to derail the gate. When he asked a second person standing at the driver’s side of the vehicle what they were busy doing, the man allegedly reached into the vehicle and drew a firearm. Du Plessis tried to run back into his home and the suspect pursued him. He managed to close the gate behind him and as he reached his front door the suspect fired a shot at him, but missed. Du Plessis dived into the house, closed the door and phoned the police.
While he was on the line with the police he heard five more shots ring out. He did not know that it was another neighbour shooting at the suspects. Although he gave the operator all the information and told him that shots were being fired, the operator kept on asking the same questions.
“Can you hear they are shooting?” a desperate Du Plessis shouted at the operator. When he finally heard his other neighbour, Charlie Mcarthy talking outside he decided it was safe to go out. Mcarthy was held at gunpoint at his home just two weeks before.
After 10 minutes two police vans and a Flying Squad vehicle arrived.
“To my disbelief the police told us that since no one was injured there was no point in opening a docket. To them it was a ‘case opened, case closed’,” said Du Plessis. Mcarthy asked the police officers to go into the house to secure it but they told him they could not do it without the owner’s permission. They subsequently left.
The neighbour whose house was broken into (a third suspect was already in the house when Du Plessis confronted the two men in the street) finally arrived at about 4pm but then had to go and fetch his daughters. While he was away Mcarthy noticed at about 6.15pm that the house’s lights were on, although they were not on when his neighbour left. Again Du Plessis called the police and told them he suspected the same criminals were back. “The 10111 operator’s exact words to me were ‘then you will have to bloody well wait until I can find a vehicle to despatch to you’,” said an irate Du Plessis.
Police only came a little after 8pm and asked if the homeowner ‘wanted to open a case’. Both Du Plessis and Mcarthy advised him to do so.
“I am saddened and angry by the police’s seemingly laissez-faire attitude and incompetence,” concluded Du Plessis.
The Record is awaiting comment from the police.
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