SERGEANT Stephen Clark, communications officer at Westville SAPS, confirmed that the Westville police station has instituted several operations to combat the crime and bring existing suspects to justice following its meeting with the Cluster Division on Monday, 20 July.
The meeting follows a spate of robberies in the Westville area, as well as after CPF chairman, Mike Myers, blew the whistle on an under-resourced police force with low morale at the Westville police station on Thursday, 16 July.
Myers said crime in Westville was at a crisis point and senior management of the Westville police station and cluster needed to acknowledge this and present a documented plan to the CPF on how they are going to deal with it.
“The Westville police station is 18 to 20 members below where it should be, and that number includes two senior management members who have not been replaced yet,” said Myers.
He added that Westville has experienced an increase in serious and violent crime over the past month, and in particular the past two weeks. These crimes include hijackings, house robberies and now the murder. He said he discussed this issue at CPF meetings and had asked that the current commander provide a plan to combat this and bring it under control. But the only commitment they had was that police members will be running extra patrols, where they were able to make a few good arrests related to certain crimes.
After lifting the lid on the situation at the Westville SAPS on Thursday, Myers received a response from the Cluster Division, which promised to provide a plan (by Monday at the latest) to curb crime in Westville. This will be a combined effort by the Cluster Division and the Westville SAPS.
Clark said intelligence-driven operations involving Crime Intelligence, SAPS Westville VISPOL, detectives and the Pinetown Tactical Response Team have been implemented in the past several weeks.
“The ground level saturation of uniformed members and marked vehicles in day-to-day and specially planned operations, coupled with the investigations running alongside, are expected to bear fruit soon.
“Daily functions to curb crime include intensive stop-and-search operations, vehicle check points and road-blocks. Detectives are also working all leads to investigate the ongoing crime as well as link suspects to offences. This plan is in line with that approved at Cluster level,” added Clarke.
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