“The South African police service is likely the biggest supplier of illicit guns in South Africa. They are providing these weapons to the largest criminal networks in South Africa and they are complicit in the murders of innocent South Africans”. This statement comes from Director of Community Safety at Action Society, Ian Cameron, after a Mitchells’ Plain police officer was arrested after 15 firearms were ‘stolen’ from the station’s SAP-13 storeroom in November last year.
This is not an isolated event, but a well documented fact that the police are in an arms trade with local gangs. Between 2005 and 2017 (12 years) SAPS lost, had stolen from, or simply could not account for 26 025 guns issued to police officers. This was reported as 18 169 guns between 2005 and 2011, and 7829 between 2009 and 2014
“This is especially concerning in a place like Mitchells Plain where gang related violence is rampant and is only becoming worse. The murder statistics from the police station indicates they are number 16 in the country and number 10 in the province, with 42 murders between July and September 2023. That is 14 murders a month. This is 11 more than the same time in the previous year, and 16 more than the year before. Mitchell’s Plain is a gangster’s paradise, and we will never win the war while criminal police members are such an integral part of the problem. With that said, we salute the good cops for doing their jobs and hanging in there, despite the rotten apples around them” concluded Cameron.
