Police stations attacked in load shedding, guns stolen, says union

Criminals are once again taking advantage of load shedding as communities are subjected to long hours of darkness.

The SA Police Union (Sapu) has expressed its concerns about the safety of police officers during the dark hours, many of whom are not even equipped with a torch.

Sapu said there was also a considerable delay caused by load shedding on registering case numbers, resulting in a delay in suspects appearing in court.

During the week, Eskom announced the implementation of stage 6 load shedding for the first time since 2019.

The power utility said this was due to workers’ absenteeism remaining high, making it difficult for them to conduct routine maintenance on its systems and other operational requirements.

Stage 6 was implemented until yesterday, with stage 4 expected over the weekend.

The union said the power outages are having a serious impact on their crime-fighting efforts across the country.

Lesiba Thobakgale, Sapu national spokesperson, said what is worse, their members in the stations and those doing patrols are also not safe.

He said this was because some police stations do not have generators to kick in after the load shedding.

Thobakgale said there were a number of police stations where police officers were attacked during load shedding and had their firearms taken by criminals, who also assaulted them. “Instead of management resolving those types of issues, they treat our members as suspects in these crimes.

“We also have a problem in registering cases within our police stations. It’s become difficult because, during that time of load shedding, no cases would be registered within the CAS System itself.

“It is very important that cases are registered in time to curb delays. If a detective has to charge a suspect to prepare them for the court, to ensure that they are also charged in the system, they are unable to do so, thus causing a delay in appearance in court,” said Thobakgale.

Thobakgale said police officers find themselves having to go to a crime scene or search in dark areas and the majority of them don’t have torches.

He said when they use torches in places like informal settlements, they can easily be seen by criminals and end up being victims, with criminals shooting at them.

“Criminals use every small opportunity they can find and indeed, load shedding, is one of the factors that criminals capitalise on. We are going to see that crime stats will show that crime has increased because policing becomes difficult when it’s dark,” said Thobakgale.

Chairperson of Pietermaritzburg Business Fighting Crime (PBFC) Kantha Naidoo said business owners are frustrated at losing trade and also do not feel safe.

Naidoo said businesses now have to spend more using generators to keep the lights on.

Pietermaritzburg police spokesperson Sergeant Sifiso Gwala said cases which include house robberies, business robberies, shoplifting and murder have gone up due to load shedding.

He said criminals are taking advantage of load shedding to commit crimes.

“They know that the different areas become dark and no street lights will be working, so no one will see them,” he said.

The only thing helped by outages is crime