Anyone who gives false statements and declarations to the police will face consequences.
This was heard at this month’s community police forum (CPF) meeting, held on Thursday, June 6 at the Cape Town Central police station.
Cape Town Central police station commander, Brigadier Hansia Hansraj, said they are facing a problem of false cases.
“Last week, there were four robberies in four hours that were reported to us and when the police officers went to the scene, they found that it was false cases,” she said.
Brigadier Hansraj told the meeting that the South African Police Service cannot waste time and resources on people who are drunk and disorderly and come to the station to report false cases.
She said there was a need to look into ways to deal with complainants who give police false declarations and take them to court.
Among other issues discussed at the meeting were events taking place in the city.
Brigadier Hansraj said she was concerned that SAPS doesn’t get involved in the decision-making when there’s an event happening in the city centre.
“We just get notified about these events and we are supposed to police it. We’ve dispatched the budget year after year and we do this every year but we need to ensure that there’s proper deployment for these events because the volumes of people that come to the city centre for events have to be considered, and the amount of crime. We’ll discuss with the City about this,” she said.
Colonel André Coetzee said there were no incidents reported from the events that took place in the city centre such as a march to Parliament and the Cape Town Coffee Festival that took place last week.
Theft out of motor vehicle was once again raised as a major concern in the city centre.
The meeting heard even though the police are doing all they can to fight the problem, it continues to increase.
There were 171 arrests in the last week, including for theft out
of motor vehicle, robbery and house breaking. The meeting heard that knives are mostly used in robberies.
“If there’s a knife found in the possession of the suspect, that person must be charged for being found in possession of a dangerous instrument even if the complainant does not want to open a case,” said Brigadier Hansraj.
CPF chairperson Marc Truss emphasised the importance of partnership policing. He urged the members to be vigilant and be aware of their environment. “Make sure that the streets are safe, let people enjoy themselves but educate them,” he said.
