This happened recently during a high speed cops-and-robbers chase involving a hijacked vehicle.
In fact, according to Const. Lobina, this is not the first time that he has been caught in a high speed chase and a high calibre fire power shoot-out with former schoolmates and classmates, who have chosen crime as a career.
And during each one of these life threatening shoot-outs, Const. Lobina, said he considers himself “blessed” and “lucky” to have escaped with his life.
Const. Lobina descried how one of the two Katlehong burglars he and his colleagues cornered after a long car chase shoot-out on the R203 turned out to be a former classmate.
Lobina told Kathorus MAIL that he recognised the thug, who had fired several shots at him during the shoot-out, as a one time classmate at Mpilisweni High in Katlehong.
He says he only recognised the man as he extended his hand to pull him out of the mangled bakkie (which the man and his accomplice had hijacked in Duduza Townships) after it fell into a ditch outside Zonkizizwe.
“He raised his hand to hold mine and our eyes met and I immediately recognised him and called him by his name as I pulled him out of the vehicle and he was surprised,” said Const. Lobina.
“It does not matter who commits a crime, my duty and responsibility as a policeman is to make sure that that there is law and order and the people of the country are protected. And if it happens that one of those who break the law is my former schoolmate and classmate, my job as a policeman is to arrest them,” explained Lobina.
The 34-year-old Const. Lobina, who started his primary schooling at Sonqoba Primary School in Katlehong and ended-up at Mpilisweni High where he attained his matric, told Kathorus MAIL that “exchanging fire power” with some of his former schoolmates and classmates has happened more than a dozen times during his eight year career as a policeman.
Lobina, described how the majority of the gun shots fired during the high speed car chase came from the passenger side of the two-seater 1-ton bakkie.
“They missed me by several millimetres as we chased the fleeing vehicle towards Kathorus,” he said.
And when Lobina and his colleagues finally caught up with the two criminals they found that the criminal who was firing at him from the passenger seat during the chase was in fact an ex high school classmate.
“In fact,” remembered Const. Lobina, the two of them were also keen karate trainees who attended different karate clubs in different parts of the township.
“But our ways parted where I enrolled at the police college and he went on his separate way. And today we almost killed each other because of the different paths between good and evil,” explained Lobina who said the incident still haunts him.
In an exclusive shocking revelation to Kathorus MAIL, Lobina, disclosed that this was not his first escape time to escape death from the hands of his former class-mates.
“I’ve ducked bullets to avoid being shot by people I used to be with at school,” explained Lobina, who said that he still feels blessed and lucky that neither his nor criminal former school mates have found their intended mark during these frequent deadly close fire power open encounters.
