Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Gunshots norm for less affluent Cape communities
“WE FEEL it. People in affluent areas will pass comments like ‘just stop having babies to stop the poverty and crime’. They have no idea how it feels seeing people being murdered, not just adults, children too, in front of your eyes, laying there. This is what gangs are doing to already traumatised communities,” said Grant Smith, founder of Gangwatch.
He said officials believe this is the best city and it is well-run.
“Yes, sure it is, for the affluent areas, but us, we are traumatised. They are forgetting what is going on in the Cape Flats. They need to do more, have more recreational programmes, do something.”
However, the city said it was doing more about gangsterism than any other city in the country.
“We have about 68 recreational programmes which operate after hours and on weekends. We have R60 million which is being used to stop gang-related violence through several operations,” said mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith.
“The South African Police Service is the primary agency responsible for crime prevention.
“It is a fact that SAPS is woefully under-resourced in the Western Cape and in Cape Town. This is not a new problem and to address the shortcomings of what is a national government competency, the city has since 2006 introduced a number of measures to shore up the defences against the growing gang problem. This in spite of the fact that the SAPS has 36 times more staffing resources than our metro police department.”
The city’s metro police gang and drug task team, K9 and eques- trian units, tactical response unit and stabilisation unit are deployed on extended shifts in gang hotspots like Hanover Park, Manenberg and Elsies River, he said.
The operational concept includes high- visibility patrols, information gathering and zero tolerance to all criminality. Illegal activities originating from council rental units are also being investigated with the aim of evicting criminal elements. Smith said the problem is when only 3% of perpetrators are brought to book.
Gunshots are the norm for Cape Flats communities, said Grant Smith, with five to 10 murders a week that are gang-related.
Grant, who is an ex-Silvertown resident, said something needed to be done to stop the gang violence and murders. Gangwatch had been created in 2014 after he decided that he could no longer stand by and watch people being murdered.
After working to identify the different gangs in the province, he narrowed it down to three major ones which are said to be terrorising communities.
There is the Hard Livings (HK) gang, in which members can be identified by a British flag tattoo. Then there are the Americans and the Fancy Boys – which Grant believes is a new gang which is growing stronger.
“They are wiping out the smaller gangs in some of the areas and taking over.”
The Fancy Boys are believed to operate predominantly in Mitchells Plain, Manenberg, Bonteheuwel and Bridgetown in Athlone.
“The Sexy Boys is also an upcoming gang. The Americans have been around the longest and have about 300 000 members – some are not active – while the Hard Livings has about 200 000 members.”
The watch said gangs were quickly infiltrating some affluent areas such as Table View, Plattekloof, and Camps Bay.
Explaining how gang-on-gang violence works, Grant said if one member of a gang is killed by a rival, that gang will retaliate by making sure a certain number of members from the first gang is killed. “They have times, for example, six members need to be killed in the next six hours. This is how the rival would plot revenge.”
Children as young as 9 are being recruited to transport drugs. The kids see what happens in the gangs and become fans. They want to learn to do it, said Grant.
“These kids are not only getting addicted to drugs but also being used to do shootings. From the age of 14, they are told to kill. Gangs know that there will be a less harsh sentence on these youngsters as they are still seen as children.”
According to the watch, women in the Cape Flats are also forming their own gangs, like the Rude Girls. However, the female gangs are said to not have contributed to murders, but rather support the bigger groups by concealing drugs and illegal firearms.
Grant said gangsterism and drugs were ruining families. “I know of many cases where a mother has lost her child and has tried to get something done. Because she is unable to get justice, she becomes depressed and turns to drugs.
“The gangsters brag about their killings. It is an achievement for them if they kill a member from a rival gang. They tell people to check what they have done.”
Gangsterism is financially driven and is territorial – this is why it won’t stop, according to Grant.