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Last month in Stinkwater, a village just west of the Tshwane township of Hammanskraal, residents beat up and then torched two men to death.
The previous day, the residents had organised themselves into groups to stand guard on street corners to fend off the thugs who routinely preyed on them on pay day.
They then spotted two men at the local shopping centre scamming a man out of R1 600 at an ATM. They gave chase through the village and, after catching the two, beat them, doused them with petrol and set them on fire.
Now, community leaders say, there is no more crime in Stinkwater.
Police statistics released last week show that 264 people were murdered in mob justice attacks in Gauteng alone between April last year and March this year, and 849 people were killed in similar incidents across the country.
The two men, whose murders will be part of next year’s crime statistics, were not the first victims of mob justice in Hammanskraal.
The week before, two alleged robbers, one of whom was from Stinkwater, were badly beaten and their car was torched.
Community leader Mothupi Mabitsela said residents had given up on the members of the local police force, whom he labelled “criminals” who accepted bribes.
“There is no police station; there are no police at Temba Police Station. That place is of full of people who are just waiting for money. Those people are crooks and they won’t help you with anything. Only poor people get arrested,” he said.
Mabitsela said the residents’ aim was “not to kill people”, but instead to restore peace and provide their own law enforcement because the police did nothing for them.
“Since those two men were torched, there has been peace here,” he said.
“Those people have been terrorising the community for a long time. Temba Police Station must be thrilled because there are no cases from Stinkwater any more.”
However, Temba police spokesperson Constable Herman Moremi said their officers “work tirelessly” to safeguard their neighbourhoods.
“They say we do not help them, but they do not report these criminal activities. The only time we hear about them is when there is mob justice happening somewhere. Mob justice is crime; it is not justice at all,” he said.
Residents of Stinkwater have decided to patrol their own streets at night. Each household pays R20 a month to ensure the patrollers are “taken care of”.
But Maria Tshabalala, whose son was beaten up during a different mob attack last month, refuses to pay R20 to those who brutalised him, burnt his shack and torched her two cars.
“I’d rather move out of this place; I am not giving anyone my money because I am still angry about what they did,” she said.
Tshabalala said her son, a taxi driver, was suspected of being a criminal, but “was not caught red-handed” and was denied a chance to explain himself.
“He was not asked if he had stolen something or what he stole. That did not sit well with me. It was on a Monday when I received a call saying my child was being beaten. When I got to the scene, my son was badly hurt,” she said.
Tshabalala said many innocent people had fallen victim to mob justice.
“Even if they decide to beat up the suspects, they should at least be given a chance to explain,” she said.
“Why rush to beating and killing people without giving them a chance to talk?”
Also last month, 100km south of Stinkwater in Daveyton, Ekurhuleni, fed up residents attacked gang members they believed were responsible for terrorising them.
Siyanda Mjoli (18) was necklaced in front of Unity Secondary School and was later admitted to Far East Rand Hospital.
Residents shot and killed another suspected gang member.
Next year’s mob justice figures will be even higher after residents of Vezubuhle, Mpumalanga, stoned and necklaced a man after he shot another resident dead during a gambling argument.
A video shows residents placing a large tyre around the man’s waist and, as he lay on the floor trying in vain to remove the tyre, residents stuffed more fuel – plastic bottles and flammable clothes – inside it.
One resident told City Press that “the community decided to kill him because he had been killing people and was not getting arrested”.
Mpumalanga police spokesperson Brigadier Leonard Hlathi said residents must not take the law into their own hands, and added that proper justice took time.
“The criminal justice system is a process. People do not want to wait for that process, but it must be followed, unfortunately,” he said.
