Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, has committed to work with the community of Alexandra, north of Johannesburg to address crime.
On Sunday, Cele met with community leaders over crime concerns, before visiting the family of slain mother, Samantha Radebe.
The 28-year-old was fatally shot allegedly in a crossfire between police and car hijacking suspects in the township on Wednesday. Another bystander was critically wounded.
Angry community members have been demanding action against a police officer they allege fired the shot that killed Radebe.
Cele says investigations are still underway to determine which of the three firearms found at the scene caused Radebe’s death.
“The real issue that brought us here besides the condolences, we were very worried about the relationship of the police and the community. If you allow the relationship to lapse, you’re opening a space for criminals to do as they wish. We have agreed with the community that that cannot be allowed to happen. If there’s a problem in between, we’ll come back. We’ll work together, there’ll be many follow up meetings in here in Alex. Looking at the crime situation things are not so good, that’s the thing we want to fix here in Alex,” says Cele.
#PoliceMinistry Police Minister Gen Bheki Cele and Gauteng MEC for Community Safety briefed by management of #SAPS in Gauteng and Alexandra following incident where 2 community members were caught in crossfire during a shootout between police & hijacking suspects in Alexandra. NP pic.twitter.com/H2DQzbmdcP
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) January 19, 2020
