South Africans have guns to their heads while VIPS get more guards
DM168
About 15 years ago, I had a 9mm pistol shoved in my face as I sat in the driver’s seat of a car. But it wasn’t a threatening situation. I was on an anti-hijacking course and the former Brixton Murder and Robbery detective running it showed participants what to do before shoving a real gun into our faces so that we could experience what it would be like to be hijacked, and hopefully we’d remember how to stay safe.
The correct thing to do is to put your hands up immediately to show your attacker that you’re complying with their wishes. Try not to look at them, but tell them that you’re going to unhook your seatbelt and then do so with your left hand. Don’t use your right hand because they will assume you’re reaching for a weapon and might hurt you.
Then open the door, again using your left hand. Leave the keys in the ignition. Don’t do anything silly like throwing the keys out of the car. “Your car is not worth your life,” is what the detective said to us over and over again, because he wanted us to understand that if we did anything stupid, we would likely be killed.
A few years later, my sister was leaving work in downtown Joburg and found herself stuck in traffic when a guy ran up to her car and pointed a gun at her head. She did not do what I taught her from that anti-hijacking course.
Adrenaline kicked in, she saw a gap in traffic and stepped on the accelerator. She didn’t get far, maybe 10m, but she spooked the gunman, who ran away. Ten years later she still gets nervous when she has to drive through the Joburg CBD.
A friend’s husband has been hijacked twice. The first time, he was roughed up, despite complying with his attacker, and they took his Toyota Fortuner. The second time, he negotiated with the hijacker, paid him R2,000 and kept his car.
How many of us have stories like these? How many of us have been victims of crime or have lost loved ones to crime? The answer is too many.
Yet, while all South Africans live in a mildly panic-stricken state thanks to our alarming crime rates, we learnt this week that Joburg executive mayor Kabelo
Gwamanda now has 10 bodyguards and eight luxury vehicles assigned to him.
As I read Daily Maverick associate editor Ferial Haffajee’s story on Monday, 8 April, about the ridiculous amount of money residents are paying for city office bearers to have VIP bodyguards, I had to take a few deep breaths to calm down. In addition to all the police personnel, 40 cars are being removed from the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department’s fleet – officers and cars that would normally be used to serve the public.
Of course, there are instances when certain high-profile politicians and public servants need protection, but high levels of protection shouldn’t be automatic.
As crime reporter Vincent Cruywagen writes in our lead story this week, the City of Joburg team benefiting from VIP services to the tune of R3-million a month didn’t even bother to do risk assessments on the public servants receiving enhanced protection. It will infuriate you even more to learn that security analysts say that the ever-increasing blue lights budget is having a detrimental effect on visible policing, crime intelligence and combating crime and corruption across South Africa. Needless to say, our lead story this week is a must-read.
In other news, Malawian journalist Macmillan Mhone was recently arrested after writing a story in which a politically connected businessman was accused of corruption. He is being indicted under the ridiculous-sounding charge of “publication of news likely to cause fear and alarm” in a country where press freedom is under increasing threat from the state.
Thankfully, we still have a free press in South Africa, but how long it remains free and how long we still have journalists holding the powerful to account is up to you, dear readers. If you value the work of journalists, show your support because we need it now more than ever. Become a Daily Maverick Insider by signing up on our website and subscribe to DM168 while you’re there.
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