Top award for Empangeni police unit
The unit scooped the award as the best POP unit in KwaZulu-Natal.
‘IT is an honour to serve with these men. I want to salute our members who dedicate their lives daily to protect our communities.’
That was the sentiment expressed by Colonel At Slinger, Commanding Officer of the Empangeni Public Order Policing (POP) unit, at the MEC Community and Police Service Excellence Gold Award ceremony at the Sibaya Casino on Friday.
The unit scooped the award as the best POP unit in KwaZulu-Natal.
Colonel Slinger said his men drive up to three hours just to start their day and work up to 16-hour shifts, covering a large geographical area into the rural heart of Zululand.
Their policing area stretches from Mbazwana to Ndwedwe, approximately 500km wide and from the coast to Ekombe 300km inland into deep rural Nkandla.
Last year POP Empangeni handled 587 incidents of peaceful crowd management intervention and 108 crowd management interventions with unrest.
Only 28 out of the 108 unrest instances merited force, which included 213 arrests.
‘I want to thank the MEC for the Department of Safety and Liaisons, the honourable Mr Willis Mchunu, for acknowledging men who dedicate their lives to law enforcement, often under difficult and life threatening circumstances,’ said Col Slinger.
