'All hell has broken loose'
2005-11-26 11:25
Marlise Scheepers and Eduan Roos
Johannesburg - All hell has broken loose.
This message was given to all robbers by the Gauteng police on Friday in the wake of the wave of armed robberies at shopping centres and transit heists in the past weeks.
In the latest incident, robbers shot and killed a member of the Johannesburg metro police, wounded another, and also shot a policeman in his arm when they opened fire on a police vehicle in Rosebank on Friday morning.
Assistant commander Bushy Engelbrecht of the Gauteng police head office in Johannesburg said the South African Police Services (SAPS) would not allow the general public and members of the police to become easy targets.
"Blood will flow"
"We have scores of police vehicles - marked and unmarked - on the prowl looking for the robbers and they are heavily armed," said Engelbrecht.
"We will come across the robbers at some stage or other and then the blood will flow - it is inevitable.
"However, it is my sincere hope that no innocent member of the public will be injured when the conflict breaks out."
Engelbrecht says every shopping centre and bank in Gauteng is a potential target for the gangs.
"These guys are reckless and have shown many times that they have no respect for life.
"But they can be sure of one thing - we will not back off."
According to Engelbrecht the police had to embark two weeks earlier on their annual security operation for the festive season as there had been a sharp increase in armed robberies, especially in and around shopping centres.
Beeld earlier reported that 62 bank robberies and approximately 230 transit robberies took place in Gauteng in the 2004/05 fiscal year.
"Every station commissioner in Gauteng has been ordered to contact their nearest shopping centres and improve on the security measures there,? said Engelbrecht.