A granny dies for a handbag, while the City plays with drones and ShotSpotter”
Cape Town:- She had just landed in Cape Town, full of joy, on her way to her only grandchild’s 8th birthday party.
Minutes later, 64-year-old Karin van Aardt from Nelspruit was stabbed to death in a smash-and-grab at the corner of Jakes Gerwel Drive and Jakkalsvlei Avenue . The attacker wanted her handbag. The attacker, a 33-year-old Langa resident accused of stabbing 64-year-old grandmother to death, has appeared in the Bishop Lavis Magistrate’s Court on Thursday December 11.
While Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, JP Smith and MEC Anroux Marais issue the usual statements of “shock and sadness”, ordinary Capetonians are still furious and asking the questions the politicians won’t answer:
– Where are the 1 300+ LEAP officers that taxpayers fund?
– Why are the same deadly hotspots (Jakes Gerwel, Malibongwe, N7, AZ Berman) stay completely unpolished day after day?
– How many more innocent people must die before we get boots-on-the-ground policing instead of drones, ShotSpotter and press releases?
This week residents flooded social media with the same anger:
Raybyn Windvogel – “Besides the criminal and those who stay silent, the SAPS, the Mayor, JP Smith and Anroux Marais must carry responsibility for this blood. The real hotspots are ghost towns when it comes to law enforcement… We are sick and tired of excuses and multi-million rand toys that have delivered nothing after more than a decade.”
In the past two weeks, I passed through Cape Town station 13 times (6 trips and a double-back). On at least 3 occasions, I saw groups of police (4 – 5 per group) stopping and interrogating people in the station precinct and then directing them to leave (seemingly based merely on appearance), yet the obvious hotspots continue to be void of real law enforcement. Increasingly, I get the impression that law enforcement on City level is a game of expensive but ultimately ineffectual tools (or toys, like Shotspotter?) and press releases with a compassionate bend.
Another resident, Tersia Tcdp, added –“Officials make plans from on high with no regard for realities on the ground. They spend millions while the real solutions are staring them in the face.” Her husband had to watch his wife bleed out in the passenger seat of their rental car because the City’s expensive “smart policing” failed the simplest job: keeping one ouma alive on her way to a children’s party.
I’ve had recent interactions with officials in education. I work on the ground. The people that live the daily expererience know better than officials. Yet, like in this case, officialdom are not willing to listen. They want to make plans from on high, with little or no regard for realities on the ground. This means they miss the workable solutions. They spend millions, while the real solutions, often at a fraction of the cost, is staring us in the face.
Raybin Windvogel Yes, that’s exactly the point,Tersia, And to add insult to injury, we’re seemingly not entitled to ask questions about their expensive solutions, going by the lack of response to simple questions.
Cape Town, how many more times must we bury our loved ones before someone actually does something that works?
#KarinVanAardt #SmashAndGrab #CapeTownCrime #WhereAreTheCops #JakesGerwelDrive #EnoughIsEnough
