Residents offer to assist police in fighting crime

EERSTERUST residents and activists yesterday pleaded with the police to save their community from druglords and criminals.

Patriotic Alliance spokesperson in Tshwane Virginia Keppler said: “Eersterust, as a previously classified coloured area, has a history of manifestation of social ills such gangs, drug abuse, druglords and house break-ins.

“However, the Eersterust police station has always been the first point of contact during an emergency as they were quick on response times.

“However, since around 2010, it has failed the community dismally, and has been deteriorating on a daily basis.

“At this stage, we as a community are trying to prevent unlawful vigilante groups to be formed, and hence a quick response to this memorandum is required.

“Our safety has been grossly impeded; we are not safe due to the incompetence and functional inertia of the Eersterust police.

“Our basic human rights as worthy citizens have been trampled upon. Our rights to safety, our rights to freedom, and our rights to a safe and healthy environment. Our basic human right to a crime-free environment are trampled on for years,” she said.

SAPS Colonel Kevin Solomons, who is the head of Garsfontein police station, heard their complaints and received a memorandum of demands.

Eersterust Police Station acting head, Captain Kobus Neveling said it was commendable that the community came and asked to work together in unity with the police to deal with crime and criminals.

“We are going to go through their lists of demands and recommendations with the district commissioner Major-general Hilda Mohajane, so that we can come up with an intervention plan to immediately implement and address this problem,” said Neveling.

Solomons said it made him very emotional to see a community come in peace to ask for better co-operation between them and police.

“We already have a plan to beef up high visibility to the community. When I ran a project against drugs before lockdown, we came in, concentrated on drug dealers and even had a helicopter here.”

Residents are demanding that the police station be more inclusive to address the language barrier. They also want action against police officers who befriend criminals.

There should also be more police vans and an improvement in assistance to crime victims, residents say.