A group of New Brighton residents handed over a memorandum of grievances to a senior police officer at the weekend and called for the commander of the station to be removed.
With residents looking on, committee members of the Blawa Task Team gathered in Embizweni Square at lunchtime on Saturday and handed over the memorandum and a large bundle of petition forms with about 2,000 signatures to acting district commissioner Brigadier Thandiswa Kupiso.
Kupiso accepted the memorandum and the petition and said she would give the material to provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Liziwe Ntshinga.
Task team leader Mike Bukani said New Brighton residents were constantly under threat from tik addicts and station commander Colonel Vivien Tembani was actively scuttling their efforts to defend themselves and oust the criminals.
“Last year, the New Brighton community decided to march to all the amaphara bases where they smoke and plan crime.
“Instead of the police helping the community, the station commander ordered Pops [public order policing] members to shoot us with stun grenades and rubber bullets and many people were injured.
“Since then the situation has got worse.
“Two Uber drivers have been shot dead and these drivers as well as residents are robbed and houses are broken into every day in New Brighton by these same criminals.
“They have a base on nearly every street.
“If Tembani stops us going to the bases, then she is working with them.
“She disrespects us.
“She must be removed.”
Uber driver Garrison Snayers was shot dead in New Brighton in February shortly after completing a drop-off and another Uber driver, as yet unnamed, was shot dead in the township on Thursday.
Bukani said the march on August 30 had erupted into violence after police stopped marchers and told them the procession was illegal.
March leaders had asked for a few minutes to address the crowd, but instead the police had fired on the crowd.
The police said at the time the Public Order Policing unit had fired stun grenades and rubber bullets after the crowd had been told the march was illegal but failed to disperse.
Bukani said on Saturday one of the fallouts from the growing lawlessness was that the E-hailer Taxi Association was now boycotting New Brighton and law-abiding residents needing to catch a cab were no longer able to.
Fellow task team committee member Mandeka Mabinja said she understood that police could not let residents take the law into their own hands.
We need to see the police doing something. We are living in hell here
“But all we are saying to her is come with us so we can show you the [tik addicts’] bases.
“We need to see the police doing something. We are living in hell here.”
According to the task team's memorandum of demands, other concerns include no visible policing, criminals arrested and released on bail to commit crime again, ambulances not fetching patients and pupils and teachers being robbed inside school grounds.
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