Police believe specialised personnel are the answer to crime gripping the province.
The SAPS conceded that despite a shortage of 1 500 staff this will not solve the problem, but instead skilled officers, who will start their specialised and skilled training later this year, is what is needed.
On Wednesday, the provincial parliament’s standing committee on community safety was briefed by the SAPS to provide an update on Operation Thunder, which commenced on May 11.
Western Cape police commissioner Khombinkosi Jula and head of the police anti-gang unit in the province Jeremy Vearey were part of the contingent giving feedback on Operation Thunder, which deployed 257 personnel from the Public Order Policing environments to nine stations in the province, specifically targeting and focusing on hot spots and identified individuals.
The police stations where Operation Thunder was conducted included Mitchells Plain, Philippi, Steenberg, Manenberg, Elsies River, Bishop Lavis, Philippi East, Ravensmead and Worcester.
“More does not always mean better. What we need is personnel with a specialised skill set to deal with gangs. We can deal with less staff if we have more specialised trained personnel.
“We will have about four or five units which will have the first group trained in December at cluster level. They will (be trained to deal with crime) aggressively,” Jula said.
Vearey responded to the question of where illegal firearms and guns were coming from, put to him by the standing committee, saying that a “single source pipeline” was identified and linked to former top cop Chris Prinsloo.
“About 800 of those guns are still in circulation and a concerted effort is being made to get those guns off the street and Prevention of Organised Crime Act (Poca) cases are being built around that,” he said.
Police said their fight against crime and gangsterism is not being lost, as was pointed out by the standing committee.
“We have found that when crimes occur that people won’t (normally) come forward with information at the (shooting) scene. This then also requires an intelligence process when we do not have witnesses coming forward. Witness availability is also a major challenge in the province.
“We find that people are not always willing to relocate should they be placed in witness protection. However, this is not an insurmountable challenge,” Vearey said.
For the period May 11 to August 19, police reported 11 154 arrests due to the efforts of Operation Thunder. Police were able to confiscate 3 018 rounds of illegal ammunition and 130 firearms.
Compared to the same period last year, four of the nine stations experienced a decrease in murder cases. The presentation detailed that Manenberg, Ravensmead, Steenberg and Worcester experienced decreases in murder and attempted murder cases.