police
Andy Duffy
The top detective brought in amid huge fanfare late last year to revive crime- fighting efforts on the troubled Cape Flats spent just six weeks in Cape Town before returning to Gauteng.
Police management deployed Director Ivor Human to the Western Cape last October to lead investigations into the spiralling violence, and alleged police complicity.
But Human says he found nothing that would stand up in court to implicate serving, or former, police officers. He also says the Western Cape police are more than up to the task of policing the Cape Flats.
Human returned to Gauteng on December 12. Currently on sick leave with a broken arm, he says he still has to discuss with National Police Commissioner George Fivaz whether he should return to the province.
But he adds that the Western Cape police “are very capable of doing their job. It appears things are going well down there … we came across nothing [relating to police complicity] that would substantiate anything.”
Human’s apparent conclusions and swift departure have surprised some elements of the local police and intelligence community. But several officials, who are convinced that there is widespread police complicity, believe Human’s investigation has merely moved into a less conspicuous phase.
Human’s return to Gauteng is nevertheless likely to dismay the Cape Flats’s long- suffering populace, given the importance police publicly attached to Human’s appointment.
Fivaz recruited Human as part of a high- level initiative, involving the president’s office, to combat escalating violence in the province.
Human’s appointment followed a crisis meeting involving Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi, Minister of Defence Joe Modise and Deputy Minister of Intelligence Services Joe Nhlanhla.
Human was previously a key member of Gauteng Attorney General Jan D’Oliveira’s special investigation team, specialising in “third force” and police corruption probes.
Fivaz’s office declines to specify what Human’s investigation has achieved, but says: “There is no finality as to the duration of Human’s assignment. This is a fluid situation which requires constant evaluation.”
The situation has taken an ominous turn in the first days of the New Year, with gang violence claiming at least six lives, including that of gang leader Edmund Herold.
Shot on Saturday following a car chase, Herold was standing in as leader of the powerful Americans gang, while his brother Neville (alias Jacky Lonty) sits in jail on a murder charge.
Hours before Herold’s killing, four people, including a 16-year-old girl, were shot dead at the Sea Point house of Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie.
Rivalry between the Americans and Hard Livings gangs stretches back for years. The Americans have previously been linked to the Civil Co-Operation Bureau.
Western Cape serious violent crime division head, Director Leonard Knipe, says arrests for the Sea Point murders are imminent. His team believes the attack was the work of the Americans. Herold is likely to have been shot in retaliation. No early arrests are expected for that killing.