Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Murdered cops’ guns found in bust
Widow breaks her silence
POLICE have made breakthrough in the double murder of on-duty police officers in Kraaifontein.
Nine suspects were arrested for the possession of unlicensed firearms in Khayelitsha, two of which were positively identified as belonging to the two officers.
Police Minister Bheki Cele said: “This breakthrough is a result of combined efforts of the Hawks together with Crime Intelligence, Flying Squad and the Tactical Response teams is paying off and I am encouraged that the SAPS in the province has taken up the call to find the police killers dead or alive.”
The grieving widow of one of the officers has refused to quit the police force but wants to be transferred out of South Africa’s murder capital.
Constable Lulamela Breakfast’s husband, Mninawa Breakfast, was shot alongside his colleague, Sergeant Mnakwazo Mdoko, in Kraaifontein while on duty in what is believed to have been an ambush.
Breakfast said all she wanted was to be moved from the Western Cape.
“I will not stop being in the police force, I just want to be transferred to the Eastern Cape because we are getting killed more here. It has become a trend for us to be killed,” she said.
She said she had asked Cele to organise a transfer for her when he came to visit.
Breakfast, who is stationed at the Langa Police Station, said she would remain in the police in memory of her husband who is also the one who encouraged her to join.
She said she had been in the police for only a year and her husband organised everything for her to join the police service.
She said she didn’t feel safe now that her husband was gone and she was worried for her two children, a 13-yearold boy and 10-year-old girl.
“I’m fearing for my children’s lives and mine because once criminals see you wearing our uniform, they target you hoping to get your work gun,” she said.
Breakfast said she would miss everything about her husband because he always made sure they were all okay and did all he could for them.
She said even though they had been stationed at different police stations, she had been used to being with him because when he was at work, she knew he would come back home after work.
“He was a very friendly person, and it will never be the same without him,” she said.
Hawks spokesperson Colonel Katlego Mogale said Mxoleleni Sokhahla was accused of killing the officers and had appeared in Blue Downs Magistrate’s Court and his case had been postponed to March 9 for a formal bail application.
She said he was facing two counts of murder and one of attempted murder after it had been discovered that a 25-year-old woman, a civilian, also had been shot during the incident and he remained in custody.
According to the Hawks, during the last quarter of 2020, seven cases of police murders had been reported, and two arrests had been made while five were under investigation in the province.
Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said the union was concerned about the killing of police because it was a trend that continued to grow.
He said the union had engaged with the minister about the killings to see if it could come up with solutions.
Mamabolo said police awere killed either for their firearms arms or because of the nature of the case they were working on.
He added that crime was not just a police matter, and that communities also needed to work with them.