Pretoria - Each year crime scars society and despite police being adamant they are doing their best, horrific incidents still find their way onto the front pages.
Frustratingly for victims, their families and society, many crimes prove hard to solve, and months may go by with no progress reported.
When some cases go to court there are delays or evidence may be insufficient to secure a conviction.
This year, saw the chief security officer of the Tshwane Metro Police Department mysteriously gunned down on the Mabopane highway in Akasia. Veli Masemola, 39, from Soshanguve, was found dead next to the Brits off-ramp, with his car idling on the roadside.
Investigations continue, but no arrests have been made.
In July, Warrant Officer Ben Strydom, 47, was shot and killed in Sinoville by 64-year-old Hendrik Wright. Wright was being sought for a string of fraud charges and had been tracked down to a rented house in Montana Park.
According to the police, when Wright saw them, he tried to escape, but Strydom caught him.
Wright drew a firearm and shot him before fleeing. A chase ensued and the 64-year-old stopped his car on Moloto Road, shot and wounded himself.
He was taken to hospital where he was placed under police guard.
He died two months later from the wounds before he could appear on fraud and murder charges.
July also witnessed two hijackings that resulted in the kidnapping of a 6-year-old Bronkhorstspruit boy, Mongezi Phike, and the death of 4-year-old Taegrin Morris of Reiger Park.
Phike was snatched when four men hijacked his father’s car, but was reunited with his family five days later. His father was assaulted and left for dead at a construction site in Bronkhorstspruit.
Police launched a manhunt, but no arrests have been made.
Taegrin’s tale was starkly grimmer than that of Mongezi.
He was left hanging halfway out of the car in his safety belt and was dragged as the car was driven off by the hijackers.
Thamasanqa Twala was later arrested for the murder, but charges against him were dropped after the State failed to link him to the crime.
Caiphus Nemavhadwa, a father of four was in September viciously attacked by angry residents in Marikana, a township outside Mamelodi East.
He was accused of being Mamelodi’s serial killer behind the killing of three women in the area.
The mob set alight Nemavhadwa’s home and torched his two vehicles.
Residents claimed they had found wire and blood in the boot of one of the cars.
They claimed the blood was of the victims and the wire was used to tie their limbs. Police moved quickly to rubbish those claims, saying the modus operandi was different in all of the three murder cases.
Police said they could not link Nemavhadwa, a taxi driver, to any of the murders.
National police commissioner Genera Riah Phiyega offered a R100 000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the killers.
September would not pass without, arguably, one of the most unintelligent crimes carried out by a thief who posed as a car guard in the city centre.
The prospective thief found himself trapped inside a BMW 3 series after he used a jamming device to access the vehicle.
The car’s auto-lock kicked, locking the thief inside.
Passers-by and witnesses swarmed around the vehicle when the trapped thief panicked after realising what had happened.
He had been inside the car for an hour and a half before the owner was contacted and asked to unlock it. He was promptly arrested.
November and December saw the EFF’s land-grabbing policy come to the city, with pieces of land illegally occupied in Nellmapius resulting in the birth of “Malemaville”, in Soshanguve, Dali Mpofu View and Nkandlaville, in Mamelodi East.
Malemaville, opposite the N4 not far from Silver Lakes, was home to a few hundred people before clashes between squatters and the City of Tshwane ensued, with squatters refusing to vacate the land despite a court order acquired by the city preventing any illegal occupation on the piece of land.
Fast forward to a few weeks, and residents in Soshanguve would follow suit, illegally occupying a piece privately owned land.
More than 150 shacks were erected before owner Wilhelm Nel acquired a court order forcing their mass eviction from his land.
Nkandlaville has seen numerous shacks being built in Mamelodi East and as yet the council has not taken any action.
After Malema’s recent utterances over land-grabs, watch this space next year.
Pretoria News