CITY of Cape Town lawman JP Smith is taking on the gang violence terrorising the people of Steenberg and Vrygrond.
A flare-up in shootings in the Muizenberg policing precinct in these past few weeks has left the community and local authorities overwhelmed and Smith has now deployed additional boots on the ground.
On Saturday, Smith took to his social media documenting his trip around the community of Vrygrond and to let mense know that over the past 14 days, 14 shooting incidents have been reported.
The Mayco member for Safety and Security said that these statistics are far lower than what is happening in Vrygrond with the recent focus being gang terror as the Junky Funky Kids and Flakkas gangs fight over drug turf.
Smith explains: “Our analysts have identified that the violence stems from resistance by local taxi associations against extortion attempts by the Junky Funky Kids (JFK) gang.
"The situation escalated when the Flakkas gang attempted to use the chaos to challenge the Funky’s gang over drug territory resulting in a full blown war on the streets.
"Residents are caught in the middle, living in fear. We’ve deployed maximum resources to assist SAPS in stabilising the area. I visited the area with our members to assess how we can better support SAPS.”
He said that over 64 officers have been deployed from the LEAP, Law Enforcement, Metro Police, Traffic and Anti-Gang Unit along with Saps.
Smith adds: “The area around Capricorn, Vrygrond, Military Heights, Overcome Heights and the surrounding community including Lotus River has seen an incredible spate of violence with conflicts between the JFKs as well as the Flakkas, extortion of the taxi drivers and this mix unfortunately left a slew of bodies on the road in the last months.
"We are trying to just bring down and stop that violence, but a more thorough intervention is needed.
"I engaged with some correspondence to the Provincial Commissioner and to the Provincial Department of Policing Oversight and Community Safety to redeploy some LEAP from elsewhere to this area for a slightly longer period and to see if we can do some lockdown operations and get some more meaningful results here but whatever SAPS needs, we will be there to supply and to assist them with because the situation is just untenable.”
Smith is doing a call up in the community that if they know something to say something by reporting any suspicious activity and calling the toll-free number for anonymous tips 0800 110 077 or the 24-hour call centre 021 480 7700.
With cash rewards on offer for helpful info, he adds: “We never expose people who inform us with information and we’re willing to pay rewards for information pertaining to firearms, drugs, people with outstanding warrants, stolen property, metal theft and so forth.
"Please help us help your community, we can only do that if we get information from the residents.”
