Whilst police in Laudium continue, from time to time, to report on successes in obtaining convictions in court, against perpetrators of crime in the Laudium area, they remain silent as to how many cases have been opened by residents, remain unresolved or closed due to police unable to catch the criminals, lack of police resources or police unable to even investigate cases due to lack of police intelligence. Crime still remains a huge concern for residents, as clearly residents are not safe walking on the streets or even being locked-up in their own homes.
This follows yet another week, whereby more incidents of crime have been reported to the Laudium Sun by concerned residents, who also believe that crime stats or reports should be made available to the community, so that residents remain vigilant at all times. In one of the latest incidents of crime reported, a home on 5th Ave, was invaded by criminals during the early hours of last Friday morning, whilst the owners were away. Despite the neighbourhood in the area, collectively arranging for a security company to keep a guard on a 24 hour basis, to watch over the area, thieves managed to come by car and break into the property and leave with the stolen items, without being spotted by the security.
The Laudium Sun was notified about the break-in by a resident living in the area. However, upon calling at the burgled home, the owner was not present, but the domestic worker who lives on the premises, explained about the incident.
Evidence Ngwenya said, “My boss was away on business from Thursday until Monday and I was alone at home. On the day he left, all seemed fine and I did the washing and cleaning as normal. At night I locked all the inside gates, as the gates going out were locked the whole day. I slept at around 10:00pm that night. At around 2:00am in the early morning I was awoken by barking dogs in the neighbourhood. There was an unusual extra barking, so I got out of bed and checked through the window to see what was going on. Everything seemed fine, so I went back to bed. But then I heard a loud bang coming from the yard. I again got out of bed and checked out from the window to see what was happening. I was surprised to see two guys running into a car which had no lights on and no number plates and then the car drove away very fast. I was scared so I called the number of Cops Security, which my boss gave me before he left and told me to call should I have any problems. When they arrived, they found the front gate of our place was broken. They then took a walk in the yard and found the side door of the garage wide open. They then checked the door and found that it was forced open. When I checked inside, I noticed that many of the items that were left in the garage were missing, including the gas tank, a car battery and clothing. The security guy then called the Laudium Police.”
JJ Breyterbach of Cops Tactical, told the Laudium Sun, “We are aware of the incident on 5th Ave. Our guard patrols the long stretch of houses. We have however changed our guards around and we have brought the ones from Erasmia to 5th Ave, who will be on a 24 hour alert.”
Sergeant Chokoe of the Laudium SAPS confirmed that a case was opened and is under investigation.
