Johannesburg - An SAPS task team is searching for what is believed to be a gang responsible for the recent shootings of Gauteng police officers.
“If the criminals think we will give up because they are shooting at us, then they have another think coming,” said Major-General Theko Pharasi, the deputy provincial commissioner for operations in Gauteng.
“We will do this within the confines of the law. We will ensure that our members’ deaths are not in vain.
“We will not rest until we have brought these perpetrators to book. There’s a task team hard at work searching for these ruthless people. We urge the community to partner with us in the fight against these evil deeds. Be patient.”
Nine police officers have been killed in the province in the past year. They were killed while on duty, said Pharasi.
* On March 24, a police officer was shot dead while chasing armed robbers at Joburg’s Park station at about 5am.
* On Sunday at about 11am, two officers died in a shootout with a gang on the N3 and a third officer was injured. A man was arrested after he was shot at the scene. He was found to be out on parole for an armed robbery in Centurion. That gang hijacked another vehicle, which was later found abandoned at the Camaro Road off-ramp.
* At about 4am on Monday, two officers stopped to check a truck parked on a roadside in Kempton Park. Armed men at the back of the truck fired at the cops, injuring one of them.
Police believe the recent shootings were all carried out by the same gang. “If you check the modus operandi of how our members are being shot at, you have the common sense to say it’s possibly the same suspects operating in the province,” said Pharasi.
“They are very violent and very focused and very heavily armed. We suspect it is one gang.”
Some of the officers shot may not have been wearing bulletproof vests, although these are issued to all officers.
“The challenge is when these attacks are taking place, when you deal with the bodies or the injured members, you will find that there will be some of them who are not wearing the bulletproof vests,” said Pharasi.
He said a strategy was being implemented to deal with members’ safety.
Since the beginning of February, Gauteng police have seized 456 weapons and arrested the same number of people in connection with those guns.
Those weapons are undergoing ballistic tests.
* Police are offering a reward of up to R400 000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killers of the two officers in Sunday’s shooting and at Park station on March 24.
Call Crime Stop at 086 00 10111.
The Star