Report crime at police stations, not on social media – cops urge

Victims of crime have once again been urged to report attacks to their nearest police station instead of social media groups.

“Residents are urged to shy away from the behaviour of taking to social media platforms to report crimes,” Akasia police spokesperson Constable Lindiwe Mdluli said.

The crimes she said were most often talked about on social media platforms included house break-ins and spike-related incidents.

“This instills fear amongst other residents,” she said.

Mdluli said that while they were not questioning whether or not the crimes written about on social media had indeed happened, there was no formal record of some of the incidents.

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“Numerous crimes are reported on Facebook and WhatsApp, but when we check our records, these cases are not there,” she said.

It was the second time Mdluli urged residents to ensure they reported the crimes they fell victim to, to their nearest police stations.

Her precious remarks stemmed from a spate of crimes in the north of Pretoria and complaints of police inefficiency on social media platforms.

This after residents complained over a series of gate motor thefts and attempted robberies in the Akasia policing precinct.

However, the crimes had still not been reported to the police days later.

“No theft of motor gates were recently reported at the station,” she said at the time.

Mdluli also said that no crime was too big or too small for the police to investigate, adding that even attempted crimes had to be reported at the nearest police station.

“Residents of Tshwane should rather utilise their first point of contact to report any crime that has transpired,” she said.

She further explained that it was difficult for police to follow-up on crimes which were not reported to them.

“If the crime is not reported to us, we cannot investigate the crime which was said to have taken place,” Mdluli said, adding that investigations into the crime would only commence once there was a case number.

“We treat every crime as a priority so we really urge community members to come forth and report crimes to us.”

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