A ”frightening” number of police officers have died in Gauteng so far this year, with almost as many slain in the first six months of 2006 as in the whole of last year, said the office of National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi.
The deaths of four police officers in a bloody siege in Jeppestown last Sunday brought the tally to 19 since the start of the year. There were 23 police officers killed in the whole of 2005.
”These are shocking figures,” said a spokesperson for Selebi’s office, Captain Dennis Adriao.
Another police officer, Inspector Calvin Bongani Myeza (40) was shot dead while walking to his house in Dobsonville, Soweto, on Friday night.
Police will fight fire with fire, Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula has vowed, adding that no mercy will be shown to criminals where none is deserved.
On May 21, the South African Police Service (SAPS) remembered 91 police officials killed last year — 33 of them murdered while on duty and 58 off-duty — during its annual commemoration service at the SAPS memorial at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Of the deaths, five were in Limpopo, six in Mpumalanga, two in North West, 24 in KwaZulu-Natal, two in the Free State, one in the Northern Cape, 12 in the Eastern Cape, eight in the Western Cape and 11 in divisions.
In 2004, 107 police were murdered, 40 while on duty and 67 off-duty.
At the time, police put the decrease down to an increase in street survival and tactical policing courses, greater community involvement in the battle against crime and stiffer sentences imposed by the courts.
The police have refused to reveal exactly how many police deaths there have been throughout the country since the start of this year, citing the moratorium on police statistics.
However, there are believed to have been at least 13 deaths in KwaZulu-Natal — four of on-duty police and nine off duty.
An off-duty Mariannhill reaction unit police officer was shot dead when he stopped to investigate a suspected robbery in Shepstone Road, Pinetown, at 6am on May 18. He was shot in the groin and chest.
The next day, Cato Manor police station commissioner Superintendent Reuben Govender (44) was shot dead by an unidentified gunman when he stopped at an intersection in KwaDukuza.
His wife, daughter and two other men were in the car at the time. Govender was hit in the head and stomach.
Limpopo’s Inspector Theunis Prinsloo (34) died in a clash with three men in Naboomspruit on Wednesday night. He was fatally shot in his shoulder. Another police officer was wounded in the leg.
In Mpumalanga, off-duty police officer Inspector Naboni Zitha was shot dead while waiting for a friend in his parked car outside a house in Numbi, Masoyi, in Hazyview, at 10pm on June 15.
Zitha, of the Hazyview crime combating unit, was shot in his mouth. His service pistol was taken.
Northern Cape police said no members had been murdered in the line of duty this year, but the province had lost 12 police officials to natural causes and vehicle accidents.
There had been no Free State police officers murdered since the start of the year either, but a Limpopo police officer on detached duty in the eastern Free State had been killed in an attempted robbery in Bloemfontein.
The police officer was in a shop in February when three armed men entered and threatened employees while demanding cash.
On seeing the police officer a robber walked up to him, demanded his firearm and shot him in his head and chest when he refused to hand it over.
Just two days before the Jeppestown killings, in Gauteng, East Rand police officer Inspector Jacobus Labuschagne (33) was fatally wounded in a shootout with a gang of robbers in Nigel.
He was shot in the chin and stomach by four men trying to rob a textile factory at 11.45pm.
Police officers would not be intimidated by armed criminals, Gauteng Police Commissioner Perumal Naidoo said on Saturday at the funeral of West Rand Dog Unit’s Inspector Victor Nzama Mathye (49) in Giyani, Limpopo.
Mathye was killed with dog unit colleague Inspector Frederick ”Frikkie” van Heerden (32), Sergeant Gert Schoeman (30) of the West Rand emergency response service and Constable Pieter Seaward (31) of the Johannesburg dog unit in the Jeppestown stand-off.
Police were committed to serving the nation ”to make our country a safer place”, said Naidoo. ”We will do that in their names. We will do that for their families.” — Sapa