A POLICEMAN and shopper are recovering in hospital after they were injured during an armed robbery at a retail outlet in Gingindlovo yesterday.
An unknown number of armed men attempted to rob the Gingindlovu Spar at around 9.30am.
While some men remained in vehicles in the parking area outside the shop, others went inside and held up the store manager’s wife, Silvia Pillay.
She refused to give them the keys to the safe.
While the drama was unfolding in the store, two routine police patrols arrived outside. The suspects waiting for their accomplices in the car park opened fire.
Const Musiwamandla Ndlela received an arm wound. The robbers overpowered him and took his service pistol as well as the service pistol from his colleague, Const Sizwe Mabaso.
A shoot-out between police officers in the second patrol vehicle and the armed men ensued.
The men inside the shop heard the gunshots and fled without any money to the getawayvehicles.
A shopper, Sibongile Mzimela (18), was wounded in the leg in the process.
Police and private vehicles were damaged during the shoot-out.
One of the getaway vehicles, reported stolen in Durban, was later found abandoned in the Amatikulu area about 20km from Gingindlovu.
Mzimela was admitted to the eShowe District Hospital and Const Mabaso to the Richards Bay Hospital, where both are in a stable condition.
