The sounds of gun shots fired in the vicinity of Rob Ferreira Hospital sent residents into a frenzy at about 20:15 on Monday night.
Residents of Sonpark and West Acres slept with one eye open after it transpired that these shots were fired at robbers lurking in the area. According to one of the residents, Mr Richard Prinsloo, numerous shots were fired in two sets, about 10 minutes apart. “What alerted me, was the ‘double tap’ that I heard. This was indicative of the fact that the police were firing the shots.”
Mr Jacques Meiring, Bossie Community Justice’s (BCJ) operational manager, said the first “round of shots” were a car backfiring.
The second round was, however, gunshots.
Mr Nico Grobler of Hi-Tech Security Nelspruit said the police had apparently pursued four robbery suspects from KaNyamazane. The suspects abandoned their vehicle in Mbombela.
According to Meiring, they drove the car into a ditch in Brenda Street and ran into a vacant stand between Rob Ferreira Hospital and the nearby Urban Cove apartment block.
According to Mr Johann Jansen van Vuuren of Nelspruit Concerned Citizens (NCC), the suspects were pursued by the police, NCC patrollers, ACS security, Hi-Tech and BCJ. The area was barricaded and thoroughly searched, according to Meiring.
This morning, the city’s spokesman Capt. Charles Bezuidenhout confirmed that the suspects had not been arrested yet.
