Pretoria - Police shot and killed a car spiking suspect in the middle of a robbery in Tshwane on Friday night as the battle to crack down on criminals who throw spikes and stone vehicles on the roads continues.
After the police had warned that these criminals were relentless and moving from one area to another in Gauteng, they caught a group robbing passengers on an Iveco minibus, which they had halted with spikes on the N1, near the Stormvoel Road off-ramp.
This incident occurred just as social media users raised the alarm about another tactic – stoning of vehicles, which left three cars with extensive damage on the N4, between Bronkhorstspruit and Emalahleni, at the end of last week.
In a video which went viral on social media, three motorists and their passengers explained that they had managed to drive to a filling station nearby in the vehicles, a BMW 5 series, a Hyundai i10, and a Nissan NP200, which were hit with stones on their sides, and a bakkie on its windscreen, just after dark on the road.
The panicked passengers told petrol attendants of their ordeal, while the person who shot the video warned other motorists to be vigilant, as he showed the cars, including the NP200, which he said was still brand new.
When Pretoria News shared this video with the Gauteng traffic police and the SAPS, the law enforcement officers said they were not aware of the incident, but promised to investigate further to establish what happened.
Gauteng Traffic Police spokesperson Sello Maremanse, however, said the police were hard at work to crack the whip on these criminals, and make sure they were busted and punished for their acts.
On Friday night, on the N1 in Pretoria, he said the Gauteng Traffic Police Special Law Enforcement Unit officers were patrolling the highway in an effort to track down criminals who were putting spikes on public roads, and happened to be at the right place at the right time.
The tyres of the minibus, which was spiked just after 7pm, were punctured and the criminals held the travellers hostage and snatched their cellphones and bags.
“While the criminals were robbing the travellers, members of our unit intervened and attempted to arrest the robbers. The robbers then started shooting at our officers without uttering any word and our officers returned fire.
“One robber was shot and sustained fatal injuries while the rest of the robbers ran away into nearby bushes.”
Pretoria News