Johannesburg - Two more police officers have been slain and a third shot and wounded, as the onslaught against cops continues.
Amid a recent spate of attacks, an off-duty police officer was gunned down in Atteridgeville on Friday while en route to prepare for his wife’s baby shower.
Constable Ronald Baloyi, 37, who was to be a father to twins, was shot twice in the chest on Friday night while sitting in a car with his friend, Mukelani Myamba, 34.
Myamba escaped the shooting unharmed.
When Baloyi’s wife Patricia, 28, heard the news, she was so distraught that she had to be admitted to Kalafong Hospital for shock.
She was discharged on Saturday afternoon.
“The baby shower was meant to be a pleasant surprise but we received news of a terrible surprise instead,” said Patricia, who is seven months pregnant and suffers from heart disease. The couple also have an eight-year-old daughter, Lucia.
“This is a very difficult time for me; to know that he died while trying to do something special for me. That breaks my heart,” Patricia, 28, said, speaking from the Saulsville house they were renting.
She said that although she was finding it hard to come to terms with losing her husband, her twins were in good health.
“I don’t understand why they shot him. He never fought with anyone and was quiet and peaceful,” she said.
Baloyi was stationed at Laudium police station and had been with the SAPS for six years.
His murder came after Warrant Officer Boipelo Mosekwane, 47, was shot and killed and his colleague wounded in Hillbrow on Saturday morning while they were on patrol.
The officers were approached by a woman who told them that two men were trying to rob her.
They confronted the men and a shootout ensued. The suspects had apparently refused to be searched when approached by the officers.
The latest attacks brings close to 60 the number of police officers killed since the beginning of the year.
On Sunday night, Crime Line founder Yusuf Abramjee led a prayer vigil to pay homage to the slain cops.
The spate of attacks have prompted Parliament to cast doubt on the SAPS’s strategy to curb the killing of police officers.
Parliament’s police portfolio committee has expressed concern that “the killing of police officers in the country had reached intolerable proportions”.
Committee chairman Francois Beukman called for proactive measures to stop the bloodletting.
“Any strategy intended to curb this needs to focus more on preventive measures rather than reactive.”
Earlier this year, the SAPS, tabled a strategy on how it intended combating police killings but committee members expressed concern about some of the measures the earlier strategy contained, Beukman said.
“It is important for our police officers to know that their lives are taken seriously and are safeguarded so that they execute their duties without any fear of losing their lives or being attacked,” he said.
A sting operation by members of the Crime Intelligence Unit swooped on two suspects – a male and a female believed to be Baloyi’s killers – at the Bosman taxi rank in Pretoria.
Police spokeswoman Brigadier Mashidi Selepe said two suspects, both aged 26, were arrested on Sunday in connection with the murder. The police are searching for a third suspect, who is believed to be in possession of the firearm used to kill the officer.
“He (Baloyi) was the breadwinner for this family and we don’t know how we are going to cope without him,” Patricia told The Star’s sister paper, the Pretoria News. Baloyi will be buried on Saturday in Limpopo.
The police said they were working around the clock to arrest the suspects who killed Mosekwane and wounded his colleague.
Provincial commissioner Lieutenant Lesetja Mothiba condemned the murders.
“The killing of even one police officer is one too many. This is a loss to the police, deprives the community of the safety they deserve and compromises service delivery. Every time one police officer is killed, 347 community members suffer as they have lost a protector.”
Crime Line said it would donate R20 000 to the families of the two slain cops from the Police Widows and Orphans Crime Line Fund.