SAPS slammed for N Cape cop’s suicide

A POLICE official attached to the Detective Branch in Ritchie has died after apparently committing suicide by shooting himself in the head with his service pistol.

Sergeant Fabian Johannes died on Saturday morning after apparently committing suicide inside a shack in Ritchie.

One of the last people to see Johannes alive, Jan Leeu, yesterday told the DFA that he and two other friends visited Johannes at around 4.30am on their way home from a shebeen.

Leeu said that Johannes had acted strange during the visit, asking for his weapon, a 9mm pistol, loading and unloading it and even showing Leeu a bullet and telling him that “Jan Leeu, this bullet belongs to you.”

“Fabian asked for some beer and we offered him some. He then asked for some ginger and we gave him some,” Leeu said.

He said he left Johannes and the others in the shack at around 5am and went home to go and sleep.

However, about half an hour later members of the community woke him up and told him to “come and see what Fabian had done”.

“They told me that Fabian had shot himself. When I got to the shack I saw him sitting with his face covered in blood. I could not determine if he was dead and did not see any wounds, only the blood on his face,” Leeu said.

An ambulance was called and Johannes was taken to the Gariep Mediclinic hospital in Kimberley where he died later that morning.

Community members and friends of the victim yesterday lashed out at the South African Police Service (SAPS) for “ignoring Johannes’ problems”, including severe depression and stress-related issues.

One of the friends, who was with him only hours before his death, said that the police were well aware of Johannes’ problems but went ahead and re-issued him with a service pistol, even after “taking the weapon away from him for a while”.

The friend preferred to remain anonymous.

“His blood is on the hands of police officials who knew he was going through a difficult time but turned a blind eye and even re-issued him with a service pistol,” he said.

While most members of the community were yesterday still in the dark as to what exactly happened during the incident, with some even speculating that Johannes might have been murdered, police spokesperson, Captain Olebogeng Tawana, confirmed that police had opened an inquest docket.

Tawana said that the inquest was opened after “the death of a police officer attached to Detective Branch in Ritchie, who was found with a gunshot wound to the head”.

Johannes leaves behind a wife and two children.