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Dunoon and Joe Slovo are the areas responsible for the highest number of cases reported to the Milnerton Police Station, the recent Milnerton Community Policing Forum (CPF) meeting confirmed.
Dunoon is the main contributor to contact crimes and out of the 500 cases reported, half are from Joe Slovo and Dunoon, Milnerton Police Station commander, Brig T Tito confirmed.
“Brooklyn was neglected and now it had a double murder (after there was an arrest for a murder, the witness was shot too),” he said.
Mark Lindsell, CPF chair, welcomed all to the first public CPF meeting for 2024. He advised attendees that all vagrant-related complaints must be channelled via the local neighbourhood watch (NHW) who will take it up with the CPF/directly with the relevant officers concerned.
One of the main issues discussed was hotspot areas for illegal land invasions.
“The City does integrated deployment and twice weekly sidewalk operations. Jakes Gerwel Drive and the N7 remain a hotspot (N7, particularly Malibongwe Drive) where officers are posted,” a metro police representative said at the meeting. “At night illegal land invasions are tackled especially around Witsand, Joe Slovo and Dunoon (hot spots). They have limited resources and only six members are on duty at any given time. However, 17 police stations must be covered”.
‘No resources’
Mariel Davila from the Milnerton Central Neighbourhood Watch said the area is plagued with many socio-economic problems.
“From rat racing of taxis through residential areas, illegal transportation of children, children and teachers being held up at gunpoint at Seamount Primary, parents ignoring road rules when dropping or fetching children to the recent rape in the park. As a concerned citizen and mother one cannot keep on pleading and pleading for help and consistently hearing a frustrating answer of ‘no resources’,” she said.
She expressed her frustration with the lack of help she is getting and said “walking buses must be instituted, more sporadic operations are required in this area and a mobile unit should be sent to the area. Law enforcement and the community should not allow children to be transported with unlicensed vehicles and schools must be sensitised about this.”
Gary Jacobs from the Phoenix Neighbourhood Watch shed light on a concerning trend of public drinking.
Jacobs said drinking in public and on bridges on a Friday from 22:00 is a huge problem.
Adv Shaira Naidoo, a Milnerton Ridge resident, said she worked as a prosecutor, magistrate and now a private advocate and dealt with a lot of cases emanating from the Milnerton area. She confirmed that if drinking is happening on private property, the owner would need to take the necessary steps to address it. “A person can only be arrested if the engine is running,” she says.
Combining forces
Naidoo informed the meeting that her neighbour’s house was recently broken into in broad daylight but police only arrived after she phoned the station commander and the provincial commissioner’s office.
“This is a huge concern and a general trend due to lack of manpower and the police do not even pick up the phone, nor the 10111 number,” she said.
Naidoo said there are no cohesive law enforcement agencies working together to assist the community but rather a focus on stats-driven arrests – but ignoring other crimes,” she said
“There are not enough cars on the streets as they are all broken. There is some sort of cooperativeness required. Metro can provide counselling for family. At the 711 there are a lot of bottle breaking and drug using – what is done to address it?” she asked.
Councillor challenges
Benadie said he is responsible for half of Milnerton and Ward Councillor Fabian Ah-Sing for the other half of Milnerton (Ward 55).
He had two challenges: the growing perception that law enforcement has replaced the police.
“It says it is such a process just to get a vehicle repaired. But we have to fix what is wrong with the police. He reiterated that the City is only complementary to the police who have all the powers and many more members than the City, but the City does not have all the powers the police has. That is why it is so important to get the powers of the police dismantled,” he said.
Ah-Sing said his challenge is that residents think whatever happened must be fixed by the City.
“It is important to clarify mandates and to implement them as the police have been systematically broken down for more than a decade. It is known that the Western Cape gets the least resources. There is a huge need for a joint approach and meeting to clarify it.”
Ah-Sing said he just started a new initiative in Brooklyn to address gangsterism and requested for more Law Enforcement Advancement Programme (LEAP) officers.
Lindsell said as the chair of the CPF, he had seen much more cooperation between the law enforcement agencies, “more so metro police and less so with law enforcement, combined operations with police with success.”
Naidoo offered her services to empower the CPF, the police and metro police, to ensure more convictions in court.
The next CPF meeting will be held on Tuesday 7 May at 19:00.
