National Police commissioner Khehla Sitole and Police minister Bheki Cele have described the killings of police officers as treason and a crime against the state.
They were among the police top brass who paid tribute to the three police officers killed in the Western Cape over the past few weeks.
A memorial service was held on Thursday in Mitchells Plain.
All of the officers were under 40, with outstanding potential in the police service.
Two of them were killed in separate incidents last Friday and both robbed of their firearms. 30-year-old constable Lonwabo Kili was shot and killed in Delft. 37-year-old constable Siyamcela Ncipa was shot and killed in Khayelitsha.
Thirty three-year-old constable Arthur Matu’s charred remains were found inside his vehicle earlier this month. Family members are still in shock.
Nkululelo Yoto, uncle of Constable Arthur Matu, says: “It’s not easy for my family to accept because he was a son and he was no problem in my family or in the area and we don’t know what’s going on that he died like this.”
Police management says making sure that officers are equipped with specialist skills and weapons is a priority.
“We increase their tactical capability and awareness. The second level of equipment is that we are responding to modus operandi. Criminals have now decided to cover up the scene of the crime. If they are bombing an ATM 500m away they deploy 15 people with ak47s and then there we also want to make sure that police are fully equipped on the physical resources point of view. Like at that particular scene at night I would like them to be armed with rifles with the most capable firearms so that they can respond to anything and everything,” says Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole.
Six police officers have been killed in the Western Cape since January this year.
“The law must bite even harder when it comes to the killing of police. That’s why I’m happy that there is a lot of support even in cabinet of saying you are not punchy enough to criminals who are attacking the state because attacking the police is attacking the state. So our memorandum we have sent, is do more things about the killing of the police so those that it should be an extraordinary thing, it looks like South Africans are getting used to it. It should not be. You go to the United States and kill the police and see what happens to you,” says Police minister Bheki Cele.
Investigations into the murders are ongoing and they have yet to track down suspects.
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