Cape Town - A repeat murder suspect is in custody for allegedly gunning down a Nyanga policeman, the third attack on a police officer in the province in less than a week.
The detective constable, 38, was shot in Nyanga late on Friday and died at the scene. He is the third policeman to be killed in Nyanga and one of at least eight police officers killed in the province this year.
He was murdered four days after Shamiela Isaacs, 71, the mother of a police detective who is part of an operation clamping down on gangsterism, was fatally shot in her Manenberg home.
Isaacs’s son was also wounded during the incident, which was believed to have been a targeted attack on the police detective.
A day before he was killed, a detective sergeant from Lingelethu West was shot in Khayelitsha while chasing a suspect and later died in hospital. A man, 24, was arrested.
On Saturday police spokesman Frederick van Wyk said a 27-year-old man had been arrested for the detective’s murder in Nyanga on Friday.
He did not give the name of the dead officer, saying this would only be done once his family had been informed.
Van Wyk said the detective constable had been chasing a suspect in New Flats, Nyanga, when he was shot. The suspect was wanted for several murders.
Police rushed to the scene and arrested the suspect, 27.
Murder and attempted murder charges were being probed.
The suspect is expected to appear in a court this week.
“Western Cape police management… said these senseless killings of police officers will be fought with every resource at our disposal, and we will not stop until perpetrators are brought to book,” Van Wyk said.
On Saturday Jeremy Vearey, head of Operation Combat, the provincial police’s operation targeting gangsterism, said a suspect was being detained and questioned about the Manenberg shooting.
Vearey, who was speaking on behalf of the family, said it appeared the Operation Combat member had been targeted in the shooting.
In other police killings in the province this year, constable Monwabisi Khaka, 33, and sergeant Sibongile Ngcawuzele, 37, were both killed in Nyanga while sitting in a car and monitoring a stolen vehicle on August 30.
That same day, Theophilus Mlindwa, 41, an off-duty sergeant, was killed in an apparent robbery in Mfuleni.
On April 16, police officer Steven Britz was killed in the Klapmuts police’s charge office.
Nine days earlier, Nokulungo Jako, a constable working with the Flying Squad, was killed when she was knocked over by a hijacked vehicle.
And earlier this year, Rozelle Witbooi, an officer in Kraaifontein, was fatally shot in Bloekombos on February 13.
* In other incidents this weekend, the bodies of two unidentified men were found in a canal in Gugulethu on Saturday.
Van Wyk said officers were probing a double murder case.
In another incident, 19-year-old Lorenzo de Kock, of Delft, was fatally shot on Friday.
No arrests were made.
* Anyone with information is asked to contact CrimeStop on 08600 10111.
Weekend Argus