A policeman is in a stable condition after being shot on Pomona Road early on Monday morning.
According reports six suspects carrying AK47s and pistols opened fire on police officers from behind the locked back doors of the truck, wounding a constable in the lower body. He was taken to Arwyp.
Spokesman for Kempton Park SAPS, Capt Jethro Mtshali, confirmed that patrolling members of OR Tambo SAPS had stopped a hijacked truck near Boundary Silk Bazaar, next to the cemetery, at about 4am.
Upon stopping the truck, the officers ordered the truck driver, who was alone in the front, to get out of the vehicle. Police noticed that the registration numbers at the back and front of the truck were not the same and the truck also didn’t have a licence disc.
They ordered the driver to open the back of the truck but he (driver) said he had no key and proceeded to make a phone call. After some time an unknown man in a grey bakkie arrived at the scene and tried to dissuade the officers from opening the truck.
The bakkie driver then drove off, leaving the truck driver behind. Six armed suspects jumped out after having fired at the police officers from within the truck.
The suspects then jumped into the police bakkie and drove off.
The police van was later dumped on Pomona Road where the suspects hijacked a Honda Ballade to escape in.
An AK47 magazine with live rounds was found inside the police van. Cartridges were also found on both scenes.
This incident followed only hours after a shootout on the N3 near Modderfontein in which two police officers lost their lives.
