NORKEM Park SAPS arrested eight suspects, five of them from Soweto, from February 20 to 22.
According to Capt Lesibana Molokomme, spokesman for Norkem Park SAPS, three Soweto men were arrested for housebreaking after they were caught in the act by the police while robbing a house on Moepel Street in Birchleigh.
“A neighbour saw the men enter the house and alerted the sector vehicle. The two officers on duty responded within five minutes,” Molokomme said.
The two policemen, along with two members from the crime office, managed to corner the suspects in the house and arrest them. The owners of the property were not at home when the incident took place.
The three men had already started robbing the home and had black bags on them containing a computer hard drive, computer screens, DVD player and wallet.
In a separate incident, two men, also from Soweto, were arrested for attempted theft of a motor gate motor on Kerkhout Street in Birchleigh at around 12.30pm.
According to Molokomme, the two suspects arrived at the home and rang the intercom to check if anyone was home. When no-one responded, the two then proceeded to attempt to steal the motor worth R5 000.
“The owner of the house was in fact at home. Instead of answering the call, she went to her window to check who it was,” Molokomme said.
She noticed them fiddling with her gate motor and called the neighbourhood watch, who made it in time to find the suspects on the scene. They handed the criminals over to the police.
In another incident two men were arrested on February 22 in Norkem Park at around 11pm. The men were wanted for an earlier armed robbery of a man on Torterduif Street the same night at 8pm.
The man came to the police station to report the crime after he was held at gunpoint by two men, who were in a white 1400 bakkie vehicle, who stole his Blackberry and R1 000 cash, Molokomme said.
The empty vehicle was later spotted at around 11pm parked along Pongolariver Drive. The suspects, aged 16 and 18, were spotted driving towards the car in another vehicle and were arrested.
The police suspect the white bakkie broke down and the men had left it on the street, fetched another car and came back to try tow it away.
On February 20, a man was arrested in Chloorkop at about 11pm for cable theft after a security officer had spotted him while patrolling in the area.
The officer, who is part of the neighbourhood watch, noticed the man cutting cables to the value of R3 000, using an axe saw and a spade.
He apprehended the suspect, aged 28 and from Tembisa, and handed him over to the police.
The police urge residents to first call the sector vehicle number, before anything else, as this will be the most effective way of catching criminals before they get away.
Sector 1 (Birchleigh and Esselen Park): 071-675-6802
071-675-6802/3
Sector 2 ( Birchleigh North and Norkem Park): 071-675-6804071-675-6804/5
Sector 3 (Birch Acres and Chloorkop): 071-675-6806071-675-6806/7
Sector 4 (Van Riebeeck Park, Terenure and Kempton Park West): 071-675-6808071-675-6808/9
Norkem Park SAPS: 011-391-1814011-391-1814/5
