Patrollers will use the jackets as uniforms during their foot patrols in the crime-riddled informal settlement.
According to one of the patrollers, Thomas Sibuyi, the group consists of 45 active members who work tirelessly and risk their lives to reduce the crime rate in the area residents nicknamed ‘Slagpaal’.
In one of the latest homicides, an Angelo informal settlement man died after he and his girlfriend were shot at an illegal tavern on Saturday night, February 12.
In efforts to end the ongoing killings in the informal settlement, the group of patrollers have, on Tuesday morning, February 14, met with a group of community members, believed to be behind the perpetual gun violence, on top of the nearby mine dump to discuss crime in the area.
According to Sibuyi, after an intense discussion, the two parties agreed to work with the community in ending the ongoing gun violence in the area.
Based on police records, the troubled tiny settlement sees at least one or more incidents of gun violence per week, and it has the highest numbers of gun homicides, compared to the other areas falling under the Boksburg SAPS policing precinct.
Innocent residents have to sleep with one eye open at all times, because thugs frequently break into people’s shack and steal valuable goods and assault the occupants.
Women are constantly grabbed off the street and sexually abused at gunpoint or knifepoint.
Police periodically raid the crime hotspots, but their efforts have yielded no satisfactory results so far.
Residents, however, blame these social problems on corruption and poor governance, police incompetence, illegal mining, the very high number of illegal immigrants, unemployment, substance abuse, poverty and a host of other social issues.
Residents are invited to a crime meeting to be held at the sports grounds in Angelo on March 4.
-@FanieFLK
