Concerned Rocklands residents took to the streets, calling for an end to gangsterism and drugs.
Wayne Siebritz, founding member and co-ordinator of Rocklands Concerned Residents’ Association, which was started recently, led an anti-crime march on Wednesday May 1.
“We felt like we needed to do something and tell the gangsters that they are not welcome here,” he said.
They gathered at Livingstream Church in Copper Street, Rocklands, where they have been meeting weekly to address the increase of crime in the area, since the fatal shooting of former Americans gang boss Mogamat Sadaka Madatt, 55, in the Kapteinsklip squatter camp in Tafelsig on Monday April 1 (“Former gang boss killed in Tafelsig”, Plainsman, April 10).
Mr Siebritz told the Plainsman that they met with Mitchell’s Plain police station commander Brigadier Mark Hartzenberg and other provincial police heads during an imbizo on Saturday April 27, where they asked for a satellite police station to be set up on the field bordered by Copper, Gold and Amethyst streets.
He said the gangsters were fighting over turf and that for many years there was a dominant gang in the area.
On Wednesday residents marched to specific houses in Emerald Close and Bronze Street – flanked by dozens of members of the National Coloured Congress (NCC), whom they had asked for help.
Mothers wearing NCC T-shirts appealed to the women on the stoeps of these houses to stop their children from doing illegal activities.
Another woman, who did not want to be named, told the Plainsman she had confronted a gangster and told him that they would not tolerate any crime or misbehaviour in their community.
“We are fearful of the people we don’t know and what they are doing in our community,” she said.
In Bronze Street, a mother sweeping outside an alleged pella pos, a drug house or crime den, cried when the marchers addressed her.
They said she must stop her children and report any crime happening and emanating from her home.
“Don’t cry now because you don’t cry when other people’s children are shot dead or have their lives ruined because of drugs,” they said.
She said: “Hulle woon hier. Hulle doen wat hulle wil. Ek kan niks maak nie.”
Brigadier Hartzenberg told the Plainsman that they did not know about the march. He said the residents’ concerns were raised at the imbizo but that decisions like a satellite police station would be made at provincial level.
Mitchell’s Plain Community Police Forum (CPF) Rocklands sub-forum chairwoman, Hilary Pieterse, said the area has been stable since the month-end imbizo was held.
“We have regular patrols and have been encouraged to call 10111,” she said.
