Alex police go back to foot patrols
Alexandra SAPS commander Brigadier Albert Maphoto says he has ordered his officers to park the vehicles and patrol on foot.
Women in Alexandra have been warned to be extra vigilant when drinking with male strangers in the township’s taverns.
This follows numerous cases of women who come to the station to lay rape charges but they were so drunk that they could not recall what happened the night leading up to the alleged rape.
The commander of the Alexandra Police Station Brigadier Albert Maphoto said his station was inundated with cases of women who believed they were raped but they could not recall what happened to them.
Maphoto warned that there were men out there who spike women’s drinks so they could sexually molest them without the victims remembering what happened. Some of the women were medically checked and confirmed to have had sexual intercourse.
“I urge women to be extra vigilant.
“These become difficult cases to prosecute if the victim can’t recall, or is unable to narrate, the events leading up to alleged rape as such a statement is key to the case,” Maphoto said during a briefing for gender-based violence stakeholders at the ENSafrica offices at the Alex Mall on February 28.
Maphoto said alcohol was the underlining factor in the majority of incidents of gender-based violence and sexual offences reported at the station. He said it was for this reason that he had taken it upon himself to clamp down on all illegal shebeens and unlicensed tavern operators in the township – 64 of these outlets closed down since he took over the reins of the station in September 2023.
“I have also ordered my officers to park their vehicles at the station and return to patrolling the township streets on foot so that they can conduct stop-and-search operations as they go.
“If you’re driving around, you can never catch a criminal in Alex because of its environmental design, with mushrooming shacks in every available space.
“A criminal will see the police van and just slip into a tiny passage among the shacks and disappear into thin air and by the time you stop and park, the criminal is gone or has been swallowed by one of the many shacks around and you won’t know which one,” he said.
He suggested that other stakeholders should establish a new environmental redesign of the township if the cops are expected to win the war against crime. “Several issues are working against us in this fight unless some of them are eliminated, combating crime will be apolice mountain to climb.”
Related Article: Longevity secret for Alex’s ‘Mother Teresa’ finally out
