Hercules residents demand police protect them from neighbours
"This is no longer a service delivery protest but terrorism."
About 300 Hercules residents gathered at the local police station on Thursday to find out what the police were doing to protect their properties amid the service delivery protest in neighbouring Gomorrah.
On Wednesday night, protesters torched a car parked inside a yard in the area.
“They vandalise, they break, they burn and yesterday they burnt a woman’s car that was parked in her yard,” said frustrated resident Johan Cloete.
“We have had enough, there’s no protection from the police for our properties, for our lives – nothing at all. We need answers because no one is speaking to us as the community of Hercules. We heard that they are meeting with the mayor on Friday, but what about us? We want answers from the SAPS about this rioting.”
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Cloete said the protest leaders should be arrested for all the disruption that had been caused by the protest.
“The police must start protecting us and we want the leaders of the Gomorrah protest to be arrested. This is no longer about service delivery, this is terrorism. We need the police and the army to come and solve this problem. We want them to also take out these terrorist elements in Gomorrah.”
He said the police have since promised that they will bring extra officers during the night.
“There were extra police and vehicles in the area at night. They said they will see what the outcome of the meeting between the mayor and the community of Gomorrah is and then they will let us know.”
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On Thursday, members of the Dutch Reformed Church Moot West said they were “gatvol” with the behaviour of the Gomorrah residents, who damaged windows and destroyed the church fence during a service delivery protest on Tuesday morning.
Community leader Elmont Boshielo said on Thursday evening, the community of Gomorrah was angered because the metro cut off their illegal electricity connections and switched on one side of Hercules.
“They cut our connections and switched on the Hercules side, this frustrated the community of Gomorrah.”
Boshielo said he was not aware of the burning of the car as he was not there at the time.
He said they were expecting the mayor to come and see them on Friday.
“We don’t know if he will be coming or send someone else. If the mayor does not come, we will continue with the protest because we want him directly.”
Tshwane mayoral spokesperson Sipho Stuurman said the mayor sent the MMC for community safety to monitor the situation and engage with the communities.
Stuurman said the MMC reported to the mayor that he had been to the ground and was working to stabilise the situation.
“We have seen that acts of criminality have been taking place in Gomorrah – the destruction of property, intimidation and threats of violence. This will not be tolerated, we’ve deployed security in the form of TMPD working with SAPS.”
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