By Caryn Dolley
Yet another family is in mourning, more children have been robbed of a parent, and scores of police officers are said to be "traumatised" after a shooting in which a constable was died while responding to a crime.
Percy Masiu, 32, a constable stationed at Diep River, is the 11th Western Cape police officer to have been killed in the past year.
He was shot in a house in Constantia while investigating a report of a break-in.
The 34-year-old owner of the Constantia house in which Masiu was shot dead was at home and was wounded.
He was arrested on Sunday in connection with Masiu's death.
Police have declined to divulge details of the shootings and say the circumstances are being investigated.
Masiu was shot dead on Saturday - the same day as relatives, friends and police officers attended the funeral in Mitchells Plain of Charles Komba, a Metro Police sergeant shot dead on duty last week.
Masiu's killing also came a week before the national police hold a ceremony in Pretoria to honour their slain fellows.
Since July last year, at least 11 police officers have been murdered in the province, and 107 countrywide.
Speaking from Ventersburg, the Free State village from which Masiu came, the constable's brother-in-law, Phanyane Moalosi, said that his family were "in complete shock".
"Percy's mother, Matebello, and father, Simon, are broken. Percy was the centre of his mother's heart.
"Percy was thinking of coming back home to be near his parents. He could only visit every six months because the bus is so expensive.
"He also has three children here."
Masiu's sons are two and four years old and his daughter is 10.
Masiu left Ventersburg about eight years ago to become a police officer in Cape Town.
Police spokesman Andre Venter said Masiu's fellow officers were in shock and had asked if they could attend his funeral, which was to be held in the Free State.
Provincial police Commissioner Mzwandile Petros considered Masiu's killing "sad and regrettable", his spokeswoman, Novela Potelwa, said. He would comment further later and on the broader topic of police murders in the province.
Mncedisi Mbolekwa, provincial secretary of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), said he was outraged that another police officer had been killed "while protecting the community".
"How can one dare take the life of a police officer, a protector of the state? We're calling for the speedy arrests of those responsible and the refusal of bail to any police killers," he said.
The mayoral committee member for safety and security, J P Smith, agreed with Mbolekwa that people arrested in connection with the killing of police officers should be kept in custody.
After Komba was murdered, Smith ordered a safety audit of the city's law enforcement officers to gauge if they needed better protection.
"Patrollers work in pairs," Smith said. "This (audit) will look at potential safety steps, like taking supervisors - who drive around alone (in marked cars) - and rather putting them in unmarked vehicles."
Smith said police were often targeted for their service pistols.
Nearly a quarter of the officers killed in the province since last year were robbed of their service pistols.
Komba was among them.
Smith said the city's uniformed officers, numbering about 1 250, were being trained to improve their safety while out on the job.
National police Commissioner Bheki Cele had not yet been briefed on Masiu's killing and had yet to discuss the number of police murders in the past year, his spokesman, Hangwani Mulaudzi, said.
Apart from Komba and Masiu, these officers have been killed since July last year:
- On August 5, Sergeant Luigi Manasse and a neighbourhood watch member were shot while waiting in traffic in Philippi East. Manasse's service pistol was stolen.
- On July 22, Gugulethu police constable Litha Mzukwa, 37, was stabbed and fatally wounded while walking to a shop in Du Noon. Robbers had mistaken his torch for a firearm.
- Marinda Jack, 30, a mother-of-two and constable at the Philippi police station, was shot dead outside her Parow home in a hijacking on June 3.
- Kraaifontein police officers Inspector Gregory Galvin and Constable Nomathamsanqa Gilidobo, a reservist, were shot dead while trying to effect an arrest on May 1.
- On October 28, Constable Makhikhaya Somdaka, a father-of-two from Lingelethu West, was killed and his service pistol stolen.
- Eleven days earlier, Constable Bulelani Ndita of Philippi was shot in Browns Farm and died.
- Inspector Lukas Nell, a father-of-three, was shot dead while trying to arrest a suspect on July 15 last year - four days after Captain Vuyo Daca, a father-of-four, had been killed while on patrol in Langa.
Community Safety MEC Lennit Max said Masiu's killing was "absolutely shocking" and the number of police killings "totally terrible".
"We cannot every second week go to a police officer's funeral. It's mind-boggling that someone can just shoot a police officer like that. The crisis of people having total disrespect for (police officers) needs to be addressed," he said.
Max said he would contact Petros to discuss Masiu's murder as well as the number of police killings in the province.
He did not know whether Masiu had been wearing a bullet-proof vest. Officers "will remain a target, whether wearing a vest or not", he said.