A Pretoria police reservist has gone on a shooting rampage at the Akasia police station, killing his girlfriend and seriously wounding a pensioner before turning the gun on colleagues and then shooting himself.
It is understood that the reservist, a Constable Mehlape, whose first name is not known, was enraged that his girlfriend, Reservist Constable Kgomotso Mathibe, who had recently ended their five-year relationship, had filed a complaint of intimidation against him.
His anger appears to have been sparked when he was told that he could not book on duty because Mathibe had opened the case against him.
Mehlape then searched the police station for Mathibe, and finding her, dragged her outside to the vehicle entrance, where they began arguing. As the argument became more heated, Mathibe fled to an interview room, where people were waiting to give affidavits, near the charge office.
It is understood Mehlape spotted a fellow officer talking nearby on a public pay phone, overpowered him, grabbed his firearm and ran after Mathibe.
Standing orders are that reservists may not take firearms home and may be issued with them only when they report for duty.
Mehlape cornered Mathibe in the interview room and shot her in the head.
As people tried to wrest the gun from him, a shot went off and passed through the upper right arm of Johannes Legalakane, 78, who was at the police station to report that his wife was missing.
Running from the room, Mehlape chased after several police officers who had come to investigate after hearing shots.
It is understood he fired at them before running back into the interview room and shooting himself.
During the commotion at least one housebreaking suspect escaped as the officers who had arrested him ran to investigate the shooting.
As terrified civilians fled the station, word quickly emerged of the heroics of some officers.
Legalakane, clutching his arm as he was loaded on a stretcher into an ambulance, said if it were not for a policeman who had pushed him to the floor, he would be dead.
“I don’t know who that policeman is, but he saved my life. I was trying to report my wife missing when the policeman ran in screaming. Suddenly he was shooting. I thought I was going to die. I didn’t know I was shot until I fell to the floor.”
Thinking the shooting was over, Legalakane tried to get up, only to be forced back to the floor by a policeman who had come to investigate.
“The policeman yelled at me to stay down. As he screamed at me, the policeman who shot the policewoman came back and shot himself,” he said.
Hailing the heroics of a colonel at the station, Andries Dique, who was at the police station with his wife, said the couple were about to leave after applying for a firearms licence when the shooting began.
“We heard the gunshots, then screams and people running screaming that he is coming and then more shots. The colonel told us to get on to the floor and under the table. We hid and prayed.”
Dique said that if it had not been for the colonel they could possibly have walked into the gunman.
His wife, Sarie, said when she heard the screams and people running she was convinced the gunman would kill them.
“I was petrified. I thought he would kill us. I thought he would find us under the table. If it had not been for the colonel who helped us we could have been killed.”
Richard Molaudzi said he was standing in front of Mathibe when she was shot.
“The policeman ran in screaming and started pushing people out of the way to get to the policewoman. She yelled at him and then he shot her. I could not believe it. One minute she was alive and the next she was dead.”
Police spokesman Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said a case of murder and attempted murder was being investigated. “An inquest docket into the suicide has been opened.”
Dlamini confirmed a housebreaking suspect had escaped and that the shooting appeared to have been sparked by Mathibe’s filing the intimidation complaint. - Pretoria News