|
Police 'won't protect malls'
27/11/2005 22:14 - (SA)
Mpumelelo Mkhabela
Johannesburg - Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi says he will not turn police officers into shopping mall guards. He has urged mall owners to secure their properties against armed robbers.
Selebi made the comments in an exclusive interview with City Press, during which he described as absurd any expectations that the police would guard malls.
For the past few months, heavily armed robbers have targeted malls in Gauteng. In one of the latest attacks, robbers exchanged fire with police officials, killing one officer in Rosebank on Friday. Using AK-47 and R-5 rifles, a gang also struck in Fourways, shooting at a man at an ATM.
Selebi said police officials should not guard malls.
"It's absurd for anybody to think that the police are going to police malls," he said.
"Since when should police guard malls? "What about the fish-and-chips shop at a corner?. "Must I have a police officer to guard that fish-and-chips shop?"
Mall owners should organise security for themselves, he said. "Naturally, when we find that a crime has been committed, we will deal with it but it is not the responsibility of the police to guard malls." Heists
Selebi said cash-in-transit heists were a seasonal phenomenon, which the police would overcome. At least five cash-in-transit heists were reported in just two weeks in Johannesburg. He said police have busted 78 heists bosses (54 in Johannesburg last week and 24 in Cape Town the week before) linked to a number of cash-in-transit heists.
A plan was being worked out with the private security companies and their clients to overcome the heists. He seemed to suggest that some of them were due to "inside-job" by those who work in the cash-in-transit industry.
"We have got to be looking at how much of information is leaked to those who want to commit those crimes. How do they know where this has to happen?
"That work is being done to deal with this. We will overcome it. It's a seasonal thing. Our plan should be such that we should be able to prevent it from going on.
"Unfortunately, in certain instances, our information was not good enough to know where they were going to strike . . ." Rape
Selebi has also lashed out at "unscientific" claims that SA was a "rape capital" of the world, saying those who made such remarks have a "spiritual knowledge of the world".
A women's rights organisation, Gender Links, was last week quoted using a similar description of SA.
Selebi said rape was a bad thing, and remained high, but such descriptions were an exaggeration.
"The people who are saying that have never been to any other capital, except Cape Town or Pretoria," he said. ". . . rape must be dealt with, but is not a matter that should be dealt with solely by the police, but the whole community - the support systems in families, civil society groups".
In the majority of cases, Selebi said police would come after it had happened "because nobody makes an appointment with us to say they would do it". "It happens in houses, it happens among people who know each other. We are not posted in every bedroom in the country."
The latest annual crime statistics show that priority crimes such as murder and robbery have decreased by
4.6% and 5.3% respectively.
However, rape has increased by 4% to 55 114 reported cases for the 2004/05 financial year period. This was a reversal of a downward trend of 4.1% recorded during 2003/4.
- City Press
|
News
