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“To all the criminal elements who have been terrorising Westbury residents, come and face us or risk being dragged out into the open by our Tactical Response Team”.
This was the resolute challenge issued to criminals who have been tormenting Westbury residents by Police Minister Bheki Cele.
The minister was speaking at the Westbury Open Grounds on Thursday, where he addressed an irate crowd of residents who have been demanding the ministry’s intervention in combating crime for the past week following the death of Heather Peterson - a mother of six, who was shot in a crossfire between alleged drug dealers.
Peterson’s 10-year-old niece was also injured in the shootout.
Cele and National Police Commissioner General Khehla Sitole officially paraded the newly deployed Tactical Response Team (TRT) in the violence plagued area.
At the unveiling ceremony, Cele warned criminal elements saying that the TRT, the National Intervention Unit (NIU), the dog unit, and Metro police will be working hand in hand to ensure that there is visible policing within the affected community.
“The NIU that you see here today does not use rubber bullets, they use the real thing - so be warned,” threatened Cele.
During this unveiling, Cele also announced that with the implementation of the permanent tactical team, the police will also make available a list of top 20 most wanted criminals in Westbury, to focus the TRT’s scope.
“The TRT will take this list and start knocking on these criminals’ doors, should they choose not to open we give them the right to kick down their doors and start ridding this community of criminal elements,” said Cele.
The minister assured residents in attendance that his department was committed to stabilisng Westbury, and that the response units would be patrolling their streets for as long as the community needed them.
To some the intervention comes as a bitter pill to swallow.
“For three to four years we have been asking for intervention with our pleas falling on deaf ears, yet it took the minister one visit to Westbury to institute all this welcome changes.
"How many lives could have been saved had such changes been implemented when Westbury residents first called for these changes,” questioned Shaheim Ishmael, a Westbury community leader.
Ishmael said the community was appreciative of the implementation of the response team and the intervention units, however, he questioned the fact that the minister has not addressed one of the main grievances that the community has been protesting for: the dismissal of the management at the Sophiatown Police Station.
“The major problem has been the management at the Sophiatown Police Station.
"They are in cahoots with the criminal elements terrorising the community, therefore, not dismissing this management counts as fixing the body without addressing the head,” said Ishmael.
According to the aggrieved residents, “the station’s management knows the drug dealers at the forefront of all the criminal activities yet protect them because they are being paid off by these elements”.
Another Westbury resident, Kurashe Davids, was more optimistic saying that the introduction of the TRT was a welcome move that should bring much needed peace in the affected Westbury community.
The task teams will be dedicated to the Westbury policing precinct as part of the broader strategy to fight the scourge of drugs and gang-related violence in the area.
Addressing the units directly, Cele reminded them that they were deployed in the area to “assist the community towards winning the fight against crime”.
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