SAPS faces lawsuit after ‘Prinsloo guns’ kill 187 kids, over 1 000 people
GUN Free SA (GFSA) is headed to the Western Cape High Court with a class action case against the police minister seeking damages arising from deaths and injuries due to corrupt, negligent firearms management.
GFSA claims in its suit that the police are accountable for crimes committed by former police colonel Christiaan Prinsloo, who confessed to selling more than 2 000 guns in police stores to gang leaders on the Cape Flats.
Prinsloo, who was involved in the illegal gun trade, was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment for a string of charges, including corruption, racketeering and theft after entering into a plea agreement with the State at the Bellville Magistrate’s Court in 2016.
The former Gauteng policeman was arrested in 2015 as part of a lengthy investigation into gangsters and the illegal gun trade in the Western Cape.
During the case it emerged that Prinsloo was assisted in his criminal enterprise by his colleague Colonel David Charles Naidoo.
GFSA said that since 2016, police records show that “Prinsloo’s guns” have been used in, at least, 1 066 murders and that 187 children were killed by criminals using a “Prinsloo gun”.
Calls and text messages failed to elicit a response from Police Minister Bheki Cele’s spokesperson. However, in February, while delivering the crime statistics from October to December 2022, Cele said there was evidence that guns were stolen from the police and households.
GFSA’s director Adèle Kirsten said: “As the virus of gun violence spreads, it’s time to hold the police accountable for their negligence.”
Litigants in the class action include the parents and guardians of children who were injured, dependants of victims killed, and those who survived a shooting with a Prinsloo gun.
Several families have already given witness statements and work continues to identify further claimants. A firm of attorneys has taken the case pro-bono, and secured senior and junior legal counsel to represent the litigants in the Western Cape High Court.
Kirsten said the police had failed to ensure South Africa had a strong and effective weapons and ammunition management system in place.
Kirsten said that gun violence had increased and was now the leading cause of murder in South Africa, with 34 people shot and killed every day between October and December 2022.
This morning the legislature’s standing committee on community safety will be briefed by the police on their response to the 2021/22 policing needs and priorities report.
During a briefing to the legislature on the report in February, Police Oversight and Community Safety MEC Reagen Allen urged the police to continue to focus on firearm recoveries and confiscations.