Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
‘I joined a gang for protection’
“I AM VERY different now. It is not easy. Anything can happen now. I don’t want anything to happen to my family.”
These are the words of John Adams, an 18-year-old who said he was coerced into joining a gang in Mitchells Plain.
The reason he felt this way was because his younger brother, 15, was shot in the leg last year.
“It didn’t feel nice to see him in that situation. I always want to protect him and see that nothing happens to him. I joined a gang because we were being threatened and for our protection. I was tired of gangs coming to school and making other children scared.”
He has been part of a gang since May. In September, Adams’s world turned upside down when he and his brother were allegedly expelled from school. His mother, who only found out her son was part of a gang through the Beacon Hill Secondary School principal, said she is very upset.
“I wanted my children to finish school. The youngest is only in Grade 8. I asked the principal why my youngest must also stay away from the school and I haven’t got a reply.”
She said the principal’s conduct was disappointing. “I am the legal guardian of both the boys, yet their father was called. When I got to the school, he, the principal and my son were already in the office.” Linda Adams described how the father allegedly stripped her son of his shirt, demanding to see the gang name and punched him while the principal stood by and watched.
“He was right there with a grim look on his face and he didn’t stop him – only after about five minutes did he intervene. All the principal wanted was evidence (that her son was part of a gang). He incited violence,” she claimed.
“My sons’ father then took him to his car and tried to leave with him. I don’t know what he was going to do but my son managed to escape. My children haven’t been in trouble before at the school and have never been involved in violent acts.” John admitted there was an incident where gang members came to confront him on the school property.
“I tried to chase them away. Then security came and took them out. They said they were going to shoot me after school. The principal said I must wait in the office, and I did.”
John recalls the principal telling him that he is putting other children’s lives in danger and he mustn’t come to school anymore. “I felt sad, I wanted to finish school. I want to become a boilermaker.”
The Western Cape Education Department said an investigation was conducted and no charges would be laid against the principal.
The department also denied that learners had been expelled.
Communications director Bronagh Hammond said: “The principal said he tried to stop the dad and later informed him that he is withdrawing the learners from the school.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Social Development is in the process of deploying a social worker to the family.