Politics, poor training have made police stations easy targets for criminal syndicates

Poor security, lack of respect and distrust in the SA Police Service (Saps), as well as stricter gun control laws, have all been blamed for the continued attack on police stations for guns and ammunition.

It has become common for armed gangs to hit police stations and hold up officers, in order to raid armouries for guns – especially semi-automatic weapons and ammunition to increase their firepower.

According to University of Stellenbosch criminologist Guy Lamb, organised criminal syndicates are targeting smaller police stations, mostly in the rural areas with lower levels of crime, because of lax security.

“These are more vulnerable because of their low security features, and [are] enticing to criminal groups looking for high-powered, semi-automatic weapons that organised criminal groups want. We need to be really concerned about this because there are a number of such cases every year,” he said.

The most recent of these happened at the weekend.

At midnight on Sunday, a group of armed men hit the Malamulele police station in Limpopo and allegedly stole four R5 rifles, four shotguns, five 9mm pistols and an undisclosed amount of ammunition.

A number of officers were forced into the back of a bakkie as the thieves raided the armoury and went on to rob a nearby local food outlet and filling station before disappearing into the night.

Acting national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Franscinah Vuma visited the station on Monday and instructed Limpopo provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Thembi Hadebe to activate a 72-hour activation plan to find the gang and the weapons.

Sitting ducks

Despite the sustained attack on police armouries by criminals looking for guns, police have seemingly done little to beef up security at police stations, particularly those in rural areas.

“The nature of Saps is such that the directive to beef up security would flow from top management to the bottom. Some station commanders will take action [and] some will not, as they see no risk due to low crime levels. This is something that needs to be prioritised from the top,” Lamb said.

He also suggested that the gangs were targeting police stations as they were not getting the firepower they needed from civilians, due to stricter gun control laws.

Lamb said the low levels of respect and distrust in the police also played a role, where police officers are seen as easy targets.

Another example of this happened in May, when two members of Crime Intelligence in Welkom, Free State, were robbed of R134,000 in secret service account funds at gunpoint.

In what appears to be an inside job, the duo had just collected the money from a pre-arranged meeting point, when they were pulled over by armed men travelling in a sedan equipped with police blue lights on the Bultfontein road.

The robbers also stole the officers bags, cellphones and later used the bank card of one of the officers.

A 39-year-old suspect appeared before the Bloemfontein Magistrates Court on Monday on charges of armed robbery and fraud, after he was arrested on 20 November 2021 by the Hawks’ Serious Organised Crime Investigation team together with Crime Intelligence (CI) and Tactical Response Team (TRT).

The suspect was apparently already out on parole for an attempted murder case, for which he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment

Soft targets

Independent security expert and Firearms SA founder Ian Cameron disagreed with Lamb that stricter gun laws had forced criminals to target the police for their guns.

He said it was the poor calibre of the police officers on the ground, and the level of political interference in policing, that had rendered police stations a soft target.

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“Police have really limited experience left in their ranks and political interference is he order of the day. The police have been politicised to the point where unfortunately we have many leadership positions filled with political appointments instead of merit appointments,” Cameron said.

Police stations are softer targets than the civilians, he said, and civilians with large calibre weapons were not the kind of people to mess with as they were well trained, disciplined and would not stand back in the face of injustice.

He said the fantastic thing about legal gun owners in SA was that they followed the rule of law to the letter and for that reason, police stations had become easy and soft targets.

“We need to look at the type of guns that are taken. The majority of cases it is R5 rifles, which are not only semi-automatic, but can be used as full automatic rifles and it is a state-issued firearm, specifically issued to the Saps. We have seen 9mm and shotguns stolen, but those are not real reason they go for police stations,” Cameron said.

He said the firepower stolen from police armouries were those used by criminal syndicates involved in ATM bombings and cash-in-transit heists.

siphom@citizen.co.za