Beach safety questioned

Another young life has been lost to violence near Clifton Beach.

The fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old boy near Clifton Beach, just two months after a UCT student was killed nearby in similar circumstances, has raised serious questions about safety at the popular tourist spot.

The teenager from Langa was stabbed in the chest on Victoria Road, Clifton on Saturday night November 30.

In September, UCT student Cebo Mhleli Mbatha was fatally stabbed in the chest by two robbers on Clifton Beach (“Student killed by robbers,” Atlantic Sun, October 3).

Ward 54 councillor Nicola Jowell said the 16-year-old was treated by medics at the Clifton Scout Hall, where the City had set up a joint operations centre for a low-risk annual film event at 4th Beach.

“In the early evening, large numbers of matriculants arrived to celebrate the end of exams. I immediately alerted law enforcement who reacted and deployed additional law enforcement, Metro and traffic police from other parts of the city,” she said.

Ms Jowell said she had been unable to reach the Camps Bay SAPS station commander, as, up until that point, there had been no police present.

“Once the situation is out of hand, it is incredibly difficult for these agencies to create order without hundreds of officers to assist. There need to be better early warning systems and proper seasonal deployment to SAPS Camps Bay station,” she said.

SAPS needed to form part of the safety plan for the area, she said, but, increasingly, the City was having to try to deploy its own law enforcement resources to do SAPS’s job.

The latest killing needed a swift response from police with arrests and preventative measures to ensure something like it didn’t happen again, Ms Jowell said.

Atlantic Sun phoned Camps Bay police station on Monday and Tuesday, asking what some of those preventative measures might be, but we were referred to provincial SAPS spokeswoman, Sergeant Noloyiso Rwexana.

We put the same question, along with others, to her in an email. She did not answer it, but rather just focused on the questions we had asked about the details of the crime.

We also called Camps Bay station commander, Captain Keith Chandler, several times on his cellphone, but each time it rang off without any option to leave a message.

Sergeant Rwexana said members of City law enforcement had encountered the 16-year-old stabbing victim at 10.45pm.

“The victim received medical attention and died on the scene due to his injuries. Police are following up on leads in order to bring the perpetrators to book.” she said.

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