Pent-up anger in the small West Coast town of Klawer exploded at the weekend after a coloured resident was shot dead by a white man, and another wounded.
The man’s neighbour, also white, said it was racial.
In the town 280km from Cape Town, with a population of over 6 000 (75% coloured, 14% white), coloured residents retaliated and burnt down four homes and a vehicle of the shooter and his family.
When the residents descended on his home, the suspect fled, and after a manhunt, handed himself over to police on Sunday in nearby Saron.
He is suspected of the murder of Hartvicht “Mannetjies” Ockhuis and the attempted murder of Howard Andrews.
Police spokesperson FC van Wyk said on Monday: “The suspect will appear in the Klawer Magistrate’s Court (Tuesday) on charges of murder and attempted murder.
“According to reports, a 57-year-old suspect shot and killed a 38-year-old man, while a 30-year-old man was also shot and injured.”
Howard Andrews, who was also shot by the suspect. Picture: Henk Kruger/ANA Pictures
When a Cape Times team investigated on Monday, the town was still tense, with police and law enforcement officers patrolling.
Howard was wounded in the groin and taken to the town’s clinic.
Emotional and in severe pain, Howard was unable to speak to the Cape Times. Relatives of Ockhuis angrily refused to be interviewed.
Marius Welgemoed, the next-door neighbour of the suspect, said he witnessed the suspect confronting Howard and Ockhuis outside his Brewer Street property.
“Mannetjies’s car got stuck without petrol, I believe, and my neighbour confronted him, saying this was his street and he (Ockhuis) didn’t belong there.
"There was a fist fight and I saw him (the neighbour) go and fetch a pellet gun. Then he shot Mannetjies twice and also the person with him,” said Welgemoed.
He said the suspect and his family were “notorious” in Klawer and were one of the oldest families in the town. “Their kind” must not be allowed to return, he added.
This reporter asked him what he meant by “their kind”: “People say he was racist. Was he that type of person?”
Welgemoed replied: “Yes, he was that type of person.
‘‘Many times we had incidents here. He even blocked off the (public) road on occasion to control who goes in and who goes out.
“They were those types (of whites) who believe this town belongs to them.
“He (Ockhuis) didn’t deserve to die like that. He (the neighbour) shot him down like a dog.”
The unrest was sparked as word spread through the rural farming town and angry coloured residents flocked to the scene and saw Ockhuis’s body lying in the street, metres from the suspect’s home, said Welgemoed.
Soon hundreds began breaking down structures and setting alight properties and vehicles belonging to the family.
Welgemoed said he had to harbour the suspect’s father in-law as he had abandoned the elderly man as he fled.
He said he was also upset that police were monitoring events from a distance as the fires raged, and he and other neighbours had to protect their own properties themselves.
Another neighbour, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he arrived on the scene just before the violence and came upon Ockhuis’s girlfriend.
She begged him to take Ockhuis to hospital, but he said he could not touch the man as it was a crime scene.
He immediately drove to the police station and reported the matter.
He said by the time police had mobilised, there were already too many people vandalising the suspect’s home, even threatening firefighters with setting their truck alight if they dared to extinguish the blazes.
Community leader Monwabisi Sikhondo said he arrived at the scene at around 9pm and saw police were standing at a distance.
“By then Mannetjies had already been lying there for a while and this had angered the community even more, as police awaited the forensic unit to collect him.
‘‘I left but heard later he was there till close to midnight and this escalated the chaos,” said Sikhondo.
He said there was relief the suspect had been arrested.