Michael Jacobs, deputy chairperson, Mitchell’s Plain United Residents’ Association
The Mitchell’s Plain United Residents’ Association (MURA) is very much concerned about the ongoing gang violence that has gripped our community once again.
The past week we have seen a number of mass shootings across Mitchell’s Plain, including, Beacon Valley, Rocklands and Lentegeur and other incidents in Tafelsig, Eastridge, Westridge and Portland.
Our communities are under siege and the recent deployments of specialised units to stabilise the area (“Specialised police deployments in ‘Plain”, Plainsman, March 20) though welcome is not enough as the deployment of these forces is usually for short periods and at best very sporadic.
The war between different gangs in residential areas of Mitchell’s Plain has been raging intermittently for more than 11 years in various forms.
Suburbs viewed as “safe”, like, Portland, Westridge, Colorado Park, Rondevlei, etc are no longer the case and it is clear to residents that they are no longer safe anywhere.
The fighting takes the form of drive-by shootings, gang members shooting at each other in broad daylight and attacks on people in their homes have become common.
It is also very concerning that the ongoing gang wars and extortion attempts by organised gangs has brought essential government services in health, education, transport and local government to a halt during these periods. The recent shooting of an alleged gang member in Rondevlei caused the Lentegeur District Hospital facility to be closed to visitors on that particular day.
The killing of a pupil in Beacon Valley recently forced the school to close and the surrounding schools took almost similar action by sending pupils home early.
Parents at times refuse to send children to school as they fear that their children would be caught in the crossfire. We are already sitting with a huge truancy problem and children sitting at home as they are unable to find work or study opportunities.
We have seen the Beacon Valley Housing Project brought to a grinding halt by the City in June 2023 due to ongoing extortion attempts by gangs, intimidation and workers shot and injured on site.
So with all of these safety challenges, what is being done to deal with the situation proactively and constructively by SAPS, the provincial Department of Social Development, the Education Department, local government and the community?
We need to be bold enough to say that through the years the police have launched several high-profile operations against the gangs, including in Mitchell’s Plain with no tangible results. It seems the police and politicians only respond to gang violence after intense public pressure with really no clear safety plan or how to make Mitchell’s Plain safe.
In South Africa, co-operation with communities through community police forums is a legislative requirement of the South African Police Service Act (Act 68 of 1995). Section 18(1) of the act provides for the police to:
(a) Maintain a partnership between the community and the police;
(b) Improve communication between the police service and the community;
(c) Promote co-operation between the community and the police in fulfilling the needs of the community regarding policing;
(d) Improving the rendering of policing services to communities at national, provincial and local levels;
(e) Improving transparency in the service and accountability of the service to the community; and,
(f) Promoting joint problem identification and problem-solving by the service and the community.
The act places a responsibility on the police to make efforts to work in partnership with the community and civil society. So why is it that we allow station commanders to dictate the type of policing we will receive as communities as if they do us a favour?
The recent missing guns scandal at Mitchell’s Plain SAPS has also increased the trust deficit between the community and police.
So in order to ensure proper and professional policing, accountability and transparency to increase co-operation between SAPS and the community, the following needs to be implemented:
(a) CPFs to be fully capacitated and resourced to fulfil their oversight role,
(b) CPFs to have a meaningful input into the station budget allocation to determine the human resources and other service needs,
(c) Station commanders and other policing personnel to be rotated every 3 years to ensure that the culture of police corruption do not flourishing for years and years without it being detected.
So the adequate resourcing of all police stations which includes Mitchell’s Plain, Lentegeur and Strandfontein is non-negotiable.
We have seen that when detectives or other police personnel at these stations are promoted to other stations that these critical vacancies are not filled timeously or not at all.
Mitchell’s Plain have lost senior detectives through promotions and these vacancies is one of the contributing factors in inspections of registers not being done, cases not timeously put on the court roll and a general lack of oversight over junior detectives.
We are also calling for the upgrade of Strandfontein SAPS from a captain-ranked station to a colonel-ranked station and Lentegeur SAPS from a colonel-ranked station to a brigadier-ranked station so as to deploy more policing personnel.
What we need is a long-term investment from government in partnership with communities through education, jobs, opportunities and sport to at least give young people a fighting chance away from gangs. The education and social development departments together with community safety structures need to ensure that truancy programmes are ramped up and that more social workers and psychologist with truancy officers are deployed to Mitchell’s Plain.
Last but not least of all, we need a Community Safety Plan for Mitchell’s Plain that will be embraced by all and that will not only be a wonderful document full of promises, but a social compact between government and the community to ensure lasting safety and stability with all the necessary resources required to implement it on a sustainable basis.