Extra patrols for Cape routes
Cape Town - Patrols on key routes in the Cape Town area are to be dramatically boosted in a bid to combat a wave of stone-throwing attacks on vehicles, Western Cape community safety MEC Leonard Ramatlakane said on Thursday.
The plan, which will see as many as ten vehicles patrolling round the clock on each of four "primary focus routes" - the N2, the R300, the N1 and the M3 - would begin at midnight on Thursday, he said.
His announcement followed a meeting on Wednesday night attended by himself and senior officials from the South African Police Service (SAPS), Cape Town city police and the Western Cape traffic department.
A number of stonings have been reported in recent weeks across the city. On Sunday Kuilsriver man Nolan Daniels died when a brick was thrown through his windscreen on the R300.
Ramatlakane said the SAPS had agreed to deploy 26 dedicated patrol officers, the city police 40, and provincial traffic 26.
A total of 46 vehicles would be deployed, up from the seven currently in use.
He also said the city would repair inactive closed circuit television cameras on some major routes, and the city would be asked to restore lighting on routes where it had been cut to save power.
His department would have "eyeball to eyeball" meetings with residents of informal settlements along the routes to make them aware they had a role in community safety, and to urge them to "isolate" those responsible for the stonings.
Asked how many arrests there had been about the stonings, he said one problem was that victims reported cases to the police for insurance purposes, but were unwilling to go to the trouble of making a full statement.
"I can't give you the figures [of arrests] offhand," he said.
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