Terror at traffic lights for couple

2009-01-13 08:12

Gloria Edwards

Johannesburg - An East Rand couple in their seventies who were driving home from church on Sunday had to duck gunfire when a security guard allegedly started shooting at their car.

Chris Pretorius, 75, and his wife Nancy, 71, were driving home from the Pentecostal Church in Boksburg to their home in Benoni at about 19:15 on Sunday evening.

Suddenly, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street, near Lakeside Mall, a CMS security guard stopped in front of them and "started shooting without asking any questions".

Chris said on Monday he had stopped in the middle of three lanes at a traffic light.

"When the light turned green, the CMS vehicle came speeding in my direction from the other side of the road and stopped side-on in front of my car, a blue Alfa.

Stop!

"The security guard jumped out and fired a shot at my car. It hit the door (between the mirror and the passenger window) where my wife was sitting. Fortunately the bullet only cracked the window and then bounced off.

"I waved my hand out of the window and shouted: Stop! The guard then fired another shot in my direction too!"

Pretorius said many CMS vehicles then arrived at the scene. The guards tried to convince him that suspected hijackers had shot at his car.

The couple were not injured, but taken to a local hospital to receive treatment for shock.

Benoni police spokesperson Captain Alfred Nakana confirmed that they were investigating a case of attempted murder against the CMS guard in question.

"It seems the Pretoriuses got caught in the line of fire between CMS and suspected hijackers."

Hijackers

But Wynand Roodt, operations manager of CMS in Benoni, insisted that CMS were not the ones doing the shooting. He said the shots were fired by two suspected hijackers who had hijacked a green kombi in Shouvy Street earlier that evening.

"When I saw it (the kombi) in Fifth Avenue, I notified the guard in question, who then sped in the direction of the kombi and stopped in front of Mr Pretorius's car. At that point the kombi was right next to the couple's car.

"One of the two suspects then jumped out and one of them fired the shots. The kombi made a U-turn and sped away. We later found the abandoned kombi in Victoria Street."

However, Pretorius said there had been no vehicles next to him.

"We saw with our own eyes how the guard shot at us. The bullet marks on my car prove that the shots had come from the front."

- Beeld