As crime continues in the Laudium/Erasmia area, residents remain despondent about the lack of police patrols and police seemingly having no plan as to how they plan to curb crime in the area.
Police response to emergency calls for assistance also seems to be of great concern to residents, who claim that the local police are just not interested in serving the community with total dedication.
This follows a recent incident, when armed thugs attacked an Erasmia home last Monday, in the early hours of the morning, at around 05:30am, on the corner of Willem Erasmus and Marthinus Streets. Salim Aboo, the owner of the property that was targeted, detailed to the Laudium Sun, the events that took place that early morning. “I got a call from my security guard, that there was a robbery at the house that I rent out. I quickly called the Erasmia police for assistance with the hope that the thugs could be caught. But much to my disappointment, the male police official who answered the phone was most unprofessional and not courteous at all. Whilst I was panicking and worried, as people’s lives were at stake and knowing that time was of the essence, the policeman was asking for my identity and wanted to know what telephone number I was using and from where I was calling. I just could not believe that during an emergency, as people could be killed, I was being asked these irrelevant questions. The more I tried to explain to the policeman that it was an emergency situation and that there were armed thugs in my tenant’s house, the more he insisted that he required my personal information first, before he could attend to my complaint. I often read in the Laudium Sun about poor police service, but to tell you honestly, I thought that sometimes people exaggerate. But now that I have experienced this kind of sloppy service from the police myself, my views have definitely changed. I was being questioned about unnecessary things, whilst people were being robbed and could have even been hurt. This kind of poor service from our local police has really shocked me. I don’t think we, as residents, should even pay our taxes for such poor service. We are not protected and clearly, we cannot depend on them. Eventually, after much pleading with the policeman, a patrol van was sent out to the scene, but the armed gang was already gone. The gang got away with money, cellphones and other valuables.
The gang also hit some of those on the premises. You see, my tenants run a bread business, so they go to work very early in the morning and they were accosted just before leaving for work. I think these thugs were watching them over a period of time and know that they have a business, and now they decided to attack them. The police will have to get their act together in doing more patrols in the area. As a community, we do not even know how many vehicles are patrolling each night or day. If crime continues this way, we will have no option but to arm ourselves and protect ourselves and our property. I was ready to go to my rented-out house to stop the gang myself, as I was so frustrated with all the irrelevant questions from the police, but my wife stopped me. We cannot carry on living in fear against these criminals. Something must be done to stop this rampant crime and urgently, otherwise, we have no choice but to use our own firearms to protect ourselves.”
Attempts to get a comment from the Erasmia CPF were futile. According to some residents, the CPF is non-functional.
Constable Tumisang Moloto, of the Erasmia SAPS, said, “The police administration must make sure that they get all the details of the caller. It is procedural police work. I understand the frustration of the victim, but we are working on a system so that we know who is calling and where from and what is the situation. The police are busy with investigations on the robbery matter, but no arrests have been made yet.”
