Station commander’s first 100 days reviewed

While the morale amongst Mitchell’s Plain SAPS and the community has improved since the deployment of a new station commander — murder, extortion and car jackings have been on the increase.

Mitchell’s Plain Community Police Forum (CPF) chairman Norman Jantjes told the Plainsman yesterday, Tuesday August 6, that Brigadier Mark Hartzenberg was committed and receptive to the community’s ideas on combatting crime.

He said there was a double murder when Brigadier Hartzenberg started on Wednesday March 13 (“Specialised police deployments in ’Plain”, Plainsman March 20) .

At the end of the last financial year, in March, on average 15 murders were reported a month.

“This year it has been a bit higher with some months having more than 15 murders a month,” he said.

Mr Jantjes said the spike in shootings coincided with the redeployment of up to 14 police officers, including three colonels, a few captains and the head of detectives, who had to report at other police stations.

This followed the arrest of a Mitchell’s Plain police officer in November, accused of stealing 15 firearms and eight imitation weapons over six-months.

These senior staff have not yet been replaced.

Mr Jantjes said they have met with senior provincial police officials to ask that Brigadier Hartzenberg remains at the station beyond September when his tenure was due to end.

“We are quite happy with the station commander. We have seen a difference in attitude and by getting additional staff the station can do a lot better,” he said.

He advocated for an integrated gang strategy, which would be kick started by a dialogue in Mitchell’s Plain to address the problem of gangsterism.

“The outcomes of this summit would contribute to the strategy to reduce the high levels of gangsterism in the community,” he said.

Mr Jantjes said many crimes, like robberies and hijackings were being perpetrated with blank firearms.

“The victim is non-the-wiser. They can’t distinguish between real or fake. They are in shock,” he said.

He said the CPF would have to be more informed about the legislation regarding the sale of fake guns.

“We must increase awareness in the community to discourage their children and themselves from buying these toy guns,” he said.

He said a lot more needed to be done to raise awareness and encourage residents and business owners to be more vigilant in preventing crime against themselves and their neighbours.

“Check when leaving your premises before you move your car out of the garage as well as on your return,” he said.

As Brigadier Hartzenberg marked his first 100 days in office at the end of last month, he recalls that when he started, policing was at an uphill battle to combat the gang violence which left both community and policing at wits end.

“Community was left distraught and hopeless as they faced the scourge of substance abuse, turf wars between rival gangs and blatant disregard for law and the safety of innocent lives,” he said.

He engaged with the community, listened to them and in turn they supported him and his crime fighting team.

“They were able to support SAPS crime prevention initiatives. This partnership proved to be successful, turning around, what seemed a lawless situation within the Precinct,” he said.

Brigadier Hartzenberg said he used intelligent driven and integrated operations with the support of the community to turn Mitchell’s Plain killing fields into a “community carefree safe space”.

He thanked the community for trusting him to bring about change.

He urged the community to never lose hope and always to support the crime prevention initiatives: “So that the gangs and the violence perpetrated can be combated at the core before it erupts.”

Brigadier Hartzenberg records the following successes during he stint as station commander: 45 people were arrested for various cases being investigated by detectives; 71 illegal firearms were recovered; 680 rounds of ammunition had been confiscated; 15 kilograms of drugs was confiscated; and 1000 litres of alcohol confiscated.

Anyone interested in fighting crime, to increase safety in the community can contact Brigadier Hartzenberg on 082 522 1228.