Police Minister Bheki Cele has taken responsibility for the police’s failure to protect the eight young men, who were burnt to death in an act of mob justice in the Zandspruit informal settlement, north west of Johannesburg.
The group of men was attacked by over 200 community members on Wednesday for allegedly being behind a number of robberies in the area. Cele apologised to the community which he addressed in the same sports field at which the eight were brutally murdered.
Cele visits Zandspruit, addresses community:
Zandspruit, an informal settlement made up of shacks and RDP houses, along with 112 unregulated makeshift liquor traders.
Cele, accompanied by Gauteng Community Safety MEC Faith Mazibuko and Provincial Police Commissioner Elias Mawela visited the community on Saturday. During their engagement with the local leaders, they were told that some police officers are alleged to be involved in corrupt activities.
Cele addressed members of the community, “There are several things, one major thing is the response of the police on a particular day. Surely, if they had responded better than the way they did, the situation would have been better here. The second thing is people who are parading as leaders yet they are pushing their criminal activities. It’s a piling of crimes that are not resolved in this particular area.”
Cele has promised the community that a police task team will be formed, to help resolve its challenges. He’s also committed to return to the area within three weeks to provide feedback to the community on what has been done to improve the Honeydew police station’s performance.
“Police gave a report that there are 550 undetected cases. Some of the cases are murder. Some are rape. The special team that the provincial commissioner is going to put is going to look on those cases including the cases that just happened here. So that those cases can go where they are supposed to go. Some will go to court and get bail and some will go to prison.”
Cele told the crowd that during his next visit, he would be accompanied by the Ministers of Social Development, Human Settlements and Small Business Development because the problems the residents of the informal settlement are facing are not only crime-related.
Community members largely welcomed Cele’s visit and said they would await his report.
“What is happening here is really terrible. People are getting hurt every day. Even though they killed people like that, it’s not good. People can do criminal activities but they do not deserve to die like that, the minister must explain to us because we need justice first of all. He must give us the way forward as to these people who have done this what are they going to do to them, what are they going to do about them. So that we know as a community that are we safe from these people. Are they part of the community or are they part of the patrollers that we know?”
The post Minister Cele questions police’s response to Zandspruit mob justice appeared first on SABC News – Breaking news, special reports, world, business, sport coverage of all South African current events. Africa’s news leader..
Read more here:: Latest South Africa News
