Johannesburg - For a police constable, the clock stopped at about 5am. The officer died at the scene after he was shot multiple times, including while he was lying injured on the ground, by a member of a gang that stormed into a bakery in the Park Station precinct early on Tuesday and robbed it.
His lifeless body lay on the tar covered with a foil sheet in Wanderers Street in Joburg’s city centre.
“He was a good man. He would give us money for food if we did not have any. If we had a gun, we would have protected him and shot the robbers,” said a man who gave his name only as Pascal.
He and his friend Bongani Makhoba live on the streets at the nearby taxi rank and witnessed the shooting.
Both knew the officer well.
Pascal said he saw the constable chasing two men in the early morning darkness.
“The officer was running very fast and catching up to one of the guys when the other guy appeared and shot him. Some of the shots were fired at close range; the last was fired when he was already down,” said Pascal.
Angry taxi drivers from the nearby rank also saw the shooting.
They said they were tired of the escalating crime and wanted former police commissioner Bheki Cele back. They said it was clear that Riah Phiyega was out of her depth. Cele was the hardliner.
“During Cele’s time, there were police vans parked at different corners around the station to ensure these kinds of things didn’t happen. Even now that a police officer has been shot, Cele would have been here. All that Phiyega does is offer rewards.
“Have they even found Senzo Meyiwa’s killers?” one asked.
In Wanderers Street, shocked onlookers gathered behind the police tape. Among them was a large contingent of SAPS officers and metro police, preventing people from getting too close and ordering some to delete pictures of the constable’s body they had taken with their phones.
Gauteng police spokesman Major Mack Mngomezulu, who was clearly devastated, said 10 people stormed The Bakery Shoppe at about 5am. A security guard notified the police, he said.
The Park Station protection service police officers responded.
“The suspects scattered and one of the officers chased some of them on foot. They fired shots at the police and the one chasing them was shot in the upper body. He died at the scene and his firearm was stolen,” said Mngomezulu.
A vendor who plies his trade not far from the bakery said he was unpacking his wares when he looked up to see a police officer running towards the exit. A few minutes later, he heard gunshots. Then people who were outside started running into the station.
Taxi drivers from the nearby rank, who declined to be identified, said they saw four men running out of the station. Two of them were carrying bags. They ran to a maroon Toyota Corolla, got inside and drove off.
The other two split up. One of them was carrying a gun and he ran towards the other side of the station. The other ran past the taxis towards a Toyota Quantum on Wanderers Street with the police officer hot on his heels, they said.
The man carrying the gun saw the constable chasing his accomplice. “He ran in the officer’s direction, shot him about four times, took his gun, then got into the Quantum and they drove off,” one of the drivers said.
The witnesses said the robbers were unmasked.
Police could not yet reveal the officer’s identity as his family still needed to be informed of his death.
The police are investigating a case of murder.
The Star