Killed in the line of duty
Families say goodbye to loved ones shot last week. Nkululeko Nene reports
MAKHOSAZANE Mdletshe was sweeping her yard in Macambini in northern KwaZulu-Natal on a hot Monday morning when her husband called from work. He asked her to please get his pants to the dry-cleaners, and told her “I love you so much”.
Thirty minutes later she took a call from her brother-inlaw asking his whereabouts; she said he was at work and continued sweeping until she heard her sister-in-law screaming from inside the house. The distressed woman ran outside, beating her head and screaming “Zakhe! Zakhe!”.
Mdletshe collapsed. It was all too much for her. The very thing a policeman’s wife fears the most. That dreaded telephone call. That ashen faced officer at the door. It was there in front of her, and Mdleshe couldn’t bear it. She passed out on the dusty ground.
Hours would pass before Mdletshe found out what had happened to her husband, Warrant Officer Jericho Zakhe Mdletshe, 52, who was in the process of applying for early retirement. “It pierced my heart,” she said.
Mdletshe worked in the crime prevention unit at Gingindlovu police station. On Monday Mdletshe and his partner, Constable Senzo Ndwandwe, 37, responded to a possible robbery near the Shoprite Centre in Gingindlovu.
Regional SAPS spokesman Captain Tienkie van Vuuren said the two policemen saw a vehicle on the other side of the road. Ndwandwe got out of their vehicle to speak to the occupants. But they started shooting at him. In the gunfight he was shot in the neck. Mdletshe, who appeared to remain in the vehicle, was fatally wounded.
Ndwandwe was taken to a private hospital where he was in a “stable but critical” condition.
The vehicle, a white Toyota Auris, was later found aban- doned 2km down the road.
It is thought that the group, believed to number as many as 20 men, intended to hit a business in the town.
At Mdletshe’s memorial service at Gingindlovu community hall on Thursday, station commander Annanias Mfaniseni Khumalo recalled the scene. “It looked terrible; with the injured member in pain. The area was littered with semi-automatic rifle and 9mm casings. It is sad to witness such a scene. I felt like I should have done more to save them.”
Khumalo then turned his attention to the community Mdletshe and other officers serve: “I am directing this to the public because you hide criminals. We plead with you to spare our lives; do not make us sacrificial lambs.”
Community police forum chairman Makhosonke Ntuli was Mdletshe’s classmate at school. He told mourners that without the presence of the police, they would be at the mercy of criminals.
Mdletshe said she would forever cherish her last conversation with her husband.
“I do not want his words to fade. We as the family feel empty without him. The killers, for their selfish reasons, have taken his life without considering us as a family.
“I am pained by his sudden death. I miss his jokes he shared with us. He loved his family.”
The officer is survived by his wife and six children. He was buried yesterday at his family home in Macambini area, near Gingindlovu.
His death comes two days after newly-promoted warrant officer Niren Ramsaroop of Glencoe was killed last weekend.
On Saturday, Ramsaroop, 40, a policeman of 21 years, was shot dead in Empangeni. He had just received a letter of promotion to a senior post.
He was described as a brave and dedicated officer who tried to help a robbery victim even after he had been shot. Ramsaroop arrested the suspect before succumbing to his wounds.
Ramsaroop was on patrol in the town centre with colleagues when three women approached them. They said they had been robbed of a bag containing R110 000 in cash by two men. The women claimed they had withdrawn stokvel money from a bank and were accosted by the men after leaving the building.
Ramsaroop spotted one of the alleged suspects and managed to grab hold of him.
The man pulled out a gun and shot Ramsaroop in the chest, but he was able to return fire and shot the suspect in the leg. The 41-year-old man was taken to hospital and remains under police guard. His firearm, a 7.65mm pistol, with its serial number erased, was recovered at the scene.
The next day veteran officer Ashok Ramsakkan, a 49-yearold married father-of-two, with 29 years’ experience, was shot in KwaMashu. He was critically injured after being hit by two bullets in the neck, apparently from an AK-47. He is in hospital and is expected to survive.
Brigadier Jay Naicker said no arrests had been made.