Police Minister Bheki Cele told police to go toe to toe with criminals and saturate the streets while addressing police management, officials from the province, City and residents at the launch of Operation Shanela on Wednesday.
The initiative was born in May this year to fight crime, with high density policing measures executed in Khayelitsha on Wednesday.
Cele attended various events, including high-density operations in Bellville and Manenberg, before heading to Desmond Tutu Road in Makhaza where the new police station is being built.
Cele said political affiliations should be discarded in the fight against crime where children, women and the elderly are being targeted.
“Gauteng, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape are on the radar because they lead in the production of crime in the country.
Therefore we cannot sit down and say to criminals they must do what they want and prosper, we must target the kingpins and bring them to book.
“Operation Shanela is more on the prevention of crime and ensuring that our lives are better.
“We need to saturate all the spaces where criminals thrive and give them no oxygen to thrive.
“Here in the Western Cape you...kill our officers and do ... mass shootings ... therefore police and all stake-holders must saturate the streets.
“When criminals cock their guns and descend on you, go toe to toe; when the dust settles we don't want to pick up the bodies of police officers, we are not funeral parlours.”
“Don’t be kind to criminals. When criminals go hard you must go harder, make sure that anything that is illegal is shut down, go and shut down all illegal shebeens, and legal shebeens must not sell drugs and all the things that aren’t supposed to be there.
“Make sure that children are protected. I have seen the (crime) figures, but you need to do better, find all the illegal firearms,” Cele said.
Community Safety and Police Oversight MEC Reagan Allen said Operation Shanela will be essential in the fight against crime in the province.
“Arrests should also be backed up with credible investigations that will lead to convictions.
“We are celebrating National Women’s month and we are aware that so many women feel unsafe, and we want to fight crime and ensure that they are protected. We thank all the officers of Operation Shanela and we urge them to work diligently to end the scourge of GBV (gender-based violence) and crime in the Western Crime,” he said.
National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola said that one the biggest challenges faced by the province is extortion, which should be rooted out.
“This is also one of the provinces where we also find that kidnapping for ransom is on the rise.
“The deployments are multi-disciplinary from many departments. We urge our members to fight crime and also look after themselves while executing their jobs.
“Members should look after themselves so that we stop burying police officers killed in the line of duty. All the forces in the provinces should continue working together to fight crime,” he said.
Provincial Community Policing Forum chairperson Fransina Lukas thanked police management for their interventions.
“We must forget about politics and focus on fighting crime in our communities. This is not about politics, but about the bigger picture which is fighting crime and that’s the only way in which we will win the war against crime,” she said.
Cape Times