As Bishop Lavis mourns another gang shooting victim, Cape Town pushes for metro police powers

Just two weeks after his 45-year-old brother was gunned down a few metres from the Bishop Lavis police station, Cobian May says his family is another statistic in a community where violent crime has become a way of life.

May was among residents who shared their experiences on Monday after Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced that the city had formally declared an intergovernmental dispute with acting police minister Firoz Cachalia to secure expanded investigative powers for metro police.

The dispute, lodged under the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act, follows years of unsuccessful engagements between the city and national government over granting metro police greater investigative authority.

“My brother was shot dead two weeks ago on a Friday. He was 45 years old. They were walking near the railway line between Bishop Lavis and Matroosfontein when he was killed. He had been involved with a prison gang, but when he came home, he wanted nothing more to do with gangs. He refused to join the local gang,” he said.

He said a day later one of his brother’s friends was also shot dead.

May believes crime has devastated almost every family in Bishop Lavis.

There is constant shooting here, robberies and smash-and-grabs. We don’t feel safe anymore. You can’t walk in the streets at night, and even during the day it’s dangerous. The other day I was taking my five-year-old daughter to school at 8am when gunshots rang out. We fear for our lives.

—  Bishop Lavis resident

“At least 50% of families here have lost someone to crime. In just the past two weeks, 10 people have been shot dead in this area. The shootings are not stopping.”

Though no arrests have been made for his brother’s murder, May said the city should just leave the police to do their job.

Another resident, Felicia*, who asked not to be identified as she fears for her life, welcomed the city’s proposal.

“There is constant shooting here, robberies and smash-and-grabs. We don’t feel safe anymore. You can’t walk in the streets at night, and even during the day it’s dangerous. The other day I was taking my five-year-old daughter to school at 8am when gunshots rang out. We fear for our lives,” she said.

Hill-Lewis said raising a family in parts of the Cape Flats, trying to keep your children not only out of the crossfire of gang violence, but also out of the hands of the gang recruiters as they grow up, is an incredibly hard and stressful undertaking.

“The safety of our communities is a top priority for us, but SAPS is the primary policing agency, and our officers don’t have the full set of powers they need. Specifically, our city police officers do not have the powers to conduct investigations, build case dockets, and get convictions so that criminals are put away and stay there.

“Right now, they can simply arrest suspects, confiscate weapons and drugs, and then they must hand everything over to SAPS, only to see those same suspects back on the streets within a week or less. This means our officers must police the same offenders, time and again,” he said.

Hill-Lewis said the city wanted metro police officers to investigate the cases they initiate, particularly those involving illegal firearms, instead of handing them over to the South African Police Service.

According to the mayor, metro police confiscate more than 450 illegal firearms every year, yet only about 5% of those cases result in convictions.

“When our officers arrest suspects with illegal firearms, they should be empowered to build a successful docket that leads to prosecution and conviction,” he said.

“At the moment, they hand those cases to SAPS, and because of a broken system, only 5% end in convictions. Our officers are forced to police the same offenders over and over again.”

Hill-Lewis said the city had exhausted every avenue to secure the additional powers through cooperation with national government.

“We are convinced the current position is irrational, indefensible and inconsistent with the constitution. We have done everything possible over the past five years to resolve this through engagement, but we have been stonewalled at every turn.”

He said the recently tabled SAPS Amendment Bill presented an ideal opportunity to amend Section 64E of the SAPS Act to allow metro police to investigate crimes linked to their own arrests.

“If this can be resolved through the dispute process, we can avoid going to court. But if necessary, we will seek a court order declaring Section 64E unconstitutional.”

Hill-Lewis said the city would begin by appointing trained detectives to investigate firearm-related cases generated by metro police.

“We already have an investigative capacity that supports our law enforcement work. We will strengthen that by appointing qualified detectives. We won’t start with a massive unit because we don’t have unlimited resources, but we will ensure the firearm cases generated by our officers are properly investigated.”

He said the city had expanded metro police by 48% over the past five years, adding more than 1,300 officers.

“Our officers recover more than one illegal firearm every day. We want to ensure those cases are investigated properly from arrest through to conviction. We will then expand into major drug and gang-related investigations.”

Hill-Lewis stressed that the proposal was not intended to replace SAPS but to relieve pressure on overstretched detectives.

“If metro police investigate the approximately 450 firearm cases they generate each year, it frees SAPS detectives to focus on other serious crimes. This is about supporting SAPS, not competing with them.”

Mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith said the current criminal justice system was failing communities affected by gang violence.

Referring to May’s testimony, Smith said: “His community is being betrayed because people are losing their lives every day and there are no convictions. If his brother’s death is to mean anything, we must take steps to prevent other families from suffering the same tragedy.”

Smith noted that earlier this year, the ministers of justice and police granted Gauteng’s Amapanyaza peace officers expanded crime-prevention powers, demonstrating that broader municipal policing powers were possible.

“If the system was working, we would not have conviction rates of just 2% for gang murders or 4.7% for illegal firearms. Communities deserve far better than that,” Smith said.