Cape Town - A close friend of Keeno Petersen-Abib, who jumped to his death from a moving train while fleeing from an alleged gun-wielding attacker, has detailed how his best friend tried to escape.
The 19-year-old victim was travelling between Lakeside and False Bay stations on Saturday.
According to the police, five men were in the train coach when they were approached by three suspects, one armed with
a knife.
Clinton Dyers, from Sharedon Park in Steenberg, said, he, Petersen-Abib and three friends from his neighbourhood were travelling home from spending a day at St James beach.
The suspects, three men and two women, boarded the train at False Bay station, he said.
The men, according to him, repeatedly shouted: “Hosh, hosh.”
Dyers and Petersen-Abib jokingly shouted, “tickets, tickets”.
“We are funny people. We like to make jokes. So these guys took it serious.
“So he (one of the suspects) went to Keeno because Keeno said we’re not talking to you. We talking to each other because we are friends.”
Dyers said he couldn’t hear what the suspect said to Petersen-Abib.
“But that’s when the guy got the gun and approached Keeno, who jumped.”
Dyers said the suspect and his accomplices got off the train at Lakeside and left.
His friend was still alive when they found him at the spot where he had jumped. Petersen-Abib died in Dyers’s arms.
Dyers said he would recognise the suspect, who had been armed with a gun, and the other assailants.
Keeno’s stepfather, Keith Abib, lamented the pain of losing his stepson, as well as the crime plaguing the country.
“I hope something can be done about this. Everyone is just tired of living in fear.
“We cannot take public transport any more because of the fear of the rubbish that is out there.”
He added that an autopsy would be completed today and that the family would post details of his funeral on Facebook.
The teenager’s mother, Shamese Abib, said: “When I came to the scene where Keeno died, I just cried.
“The cloth was already thrown over him and I said to myself it’s just a dream.
“What was the saddest for me was when his friends came over to me and they said they’re sorry for not being able to help him.
“At that moment I realised that my son was really gone.”
She said her younger 14-year-old son suffered a panic attack at the scene and had to be treated by paramedics as he couldn’t
breathe.