Following an alleged home robbery in Bryanston, in which a husband was shot in the groin protecting his wife, eBlockwatch’s Andre Snyman issued the following statement.

“South African citizens don’t know where to go with crime anymore, or how to handle it.

When we talk about crime, when we expose it, property values drop. Guests cancel. Customers disappear. Businesses suffer. Areas get labelled as hotspots. So, people stop talking.

Criminals don’t. They have no borders. No reputational risk, and that’s what South Africans need to understand.

Read more: Local CPF takes crime awareness to the community

We’ve had a cat burglar operating in the northern suburbs for a long time. Everyone knew. Nobody wanted to talk about it. Speak up, and residents’ associations shut you down. Speak up, and the police shut you down — because admitting they’re not coping is uncomfortable. Speak up, and security companies shut you down — because failure threatens their credibility.

After every incident, the answer is the same: Increase your payments, but we’re already paying. If they can’t cope now, why are we paying at all?

We’ve invested heavily in camera systems across the city. They’re excellent, but only as good as the people operating them. Very few people have access. Even fewer have the time or capacity to monitor effectively. Focus gets placed on one incident, while dozens of others happen at the same time. Capacity runs out quickly.

So where does that leave us? It leaves residents looking after one another, and not by handing everything over to councils or central bodies with no skin in the game. That model always ends the same way: Someone else decides which case matters. If it doesn’t move fast enough, they move on. The last incident gets buried.

We’ve seen this pattern before. With the arsonist, it took 22 homes before residents’ associations admitted it wasn’t a rumour.

Now, it’s happening again. There are armed criminals moving through Bryanston. A young man was shot and killed in Morningside, in front of his children. There were two earlier incidents in Bryanston where robbers were shot and killed.

A family nearby was tied up for four hours. After that — silence. No feedback. No visible change. Then it repeats.

Also read: Does CCTV help fight crime in Johannesburg?

A couple does everything right. Alarm on. Inside the house. Settled for the night. The husband, a medical professional, was exhausted and asleep early after duty. Two assailants enter from the back. That’s the gap everyone ignores. The front of homes is protected. Cameras. Lighting. Patrol visibility. Criminals don’t go there. They come through the back — via empty plots and blind spots. That’s how they get in. That’s how they get out.

When the panic button is triggered, response arrives at the front. Very few teams check the rear. Their role is to stabilise the people inside, not to chase suspects.

They can’t enter if there’s a hostage risk. That could escalate violence, and once criminals flee, they let them go, because protecting the client comes first.

That creates a hard reality: If a robbery happens, prevention failed. If criminals escape, apprehension failed.

So, what’s the way forward? Competition. Choose good providers. Demand performance, but never allow one company to dominate an area. The moment a single provider owns a suburb, effort drops, because the clients are locked in.

Monopolies don’t improve safety. They remove urgency, and silence keeps feeding the problem.”

The views expressed in this piece are those of eBlockwatch’s Andre Snyman and do not reflect those of Sandton Chronicle.

Sandton police, as well as the local Community Policing Forum, have been contacted for further information on the incident. All information will be published as soon as we receive it

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