Alexandra residents have drawn a hard line. If the leadership of the Alexandra Police Station does not step down, they will return to protest every Tuesday and Thursday.

This ultimatum was delivered in a memorandum handed over to the Alexandra SAPS on Wednesday, demanding that the provincial office take over the station’s operations, because the station’s management does not take their concerns seriously.

The memorandum, presented on behalf of the community, noted that going forward the community will only engage with the provincial office of the SAPS, not the local management.

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Dumisani Nkosi, chairperson of the Ziyakhala Movement, said the march was sparked by escalating gun violence, poor service delivery, and a police station that has failed the people of Alexandra.

Despite the clarity of their demand for leadership overhaul, other pressing issues, repeatedly raised by residents during their protests, were left out of the memorandum, including the recent wave of fatal shootings and armed business robberies in the community.

The acting station commander, Colonel Jerry Phaswana, who acknowledged receipt of the memorandum, confirmed that gun violence did not feature in their memorandum.

Furthermore, Phaswana noted the memorandum’s lack of specificity. “For example, they want all the leadership of the Alexandra SAPS to step down with immediate effect.

When they talk about the whole leadership, we are talking about the station commander, the branch commander, the Visible Policing (VISPOL) commander, the support commander, and other officers. They did not specify.”

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Ironically, some protestors asked for Phaswana himself to continue leading the station, while they wait for the response of the provincial office, but this request was not formally included in the memorandum either.

Phaswana emphasised that such decisions require district or provincial intervention. “I will forward it to the relevant authority because only the district, the provincial, or the national office, can do something about it.”

Ahead of the protest, SAPS fortified the station with heavily armed officers and multiple vehicles, including the Nyala armoured carrier.

Some residents shared that if police visibility in the community matched the security presence at the station’s gates, Alexandra would be safer.

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