Last night I woke up to the sound of gunshots which turned out to be an armed robbery taking place in the vicinity outside our secure community zone. The gunshots went on for several minutes before stopping and then starting up again. I take it the suspects got away and were then apprehended hence the second barrage of shooting. Apparently the second shots were when they were running across the golf course with the security team firing at the fleeing criminals whilst they returned fire.
This was not a normal Friday night or weekend crime incident due to the number of shots fired as the first batch had seven shots and the final shootout had approximately 12. There is no news of what went down besides what was posted in our community WhatsApp group. I had to hunt and not being a Facebook member eventually found a small article.
It turns out they caught one and killed another whilst two escaped so a 50% record which is something I guess and this was conducted by the private security company and not the police. The police are useless and you cannot rely on them so the private security companies are the people fighting crime in South Africa. The golf course was used to gain access to the property and again was used to flee the scene. The smart thinking would have left a team on the golf course.
Scary to think back that we used to live on a property that bordered the golf course and those were hectic times. We moved and bought our current property because I was sick and tired of staying up protecting the family. If there was a full moon I would stay awake and over the weekends I would be wide awake sitting outside overlooking the fairways waiting for trouble. I knew instantly as the birds in the trees being Hadedas would be disturbed and knew criminals were on the golf course. Even today I hear the birds in the early hours of the morning and know a crime has or is about to take place. Being aware of your surroundings is key to not become a statistic.
Our household remained crime free ,but at a price of having lost sleep and this was something that was never going to be sustainable. The golf course is the weak link in the area when it comes to crime as there are too many accessible points and the golf course refuses to take any accountability.
Just because we are living in what could be called a safe haven does not mean that those outside the secure zone are not having a rough time. The figures state that that they average around 1100 crimes every quarter which is roughly 12 crimes daily and would confidently say the majority of crimes happen over weekends and holiday periods so more like 30 per day for Frday-Sunday.
Hard to imagine that these figures are actually a big improvement over the last 10 years with the major factor private security companies becoming way more organised.
Car theft is down along with house crime due to vehicle registration cameras that read number plates highlighting suspicious vehicles like cloned plates or stolen cars. These cameras have been a constant battle to keep as the government has tried to get these banned. You wonder what side they are on as all this does is highlight the bad guys coming into your area and the security companies can mobilize and be aware of an impending crime.
Back to the problem being the golf course and this is nothing new as you can see this letter written by the community policing forum back in 2014. Suggestions of a golf day to raise funds to improve the security have fallen on deaf ears and there is no concern what so ever. I spoke with the manager on several occasions as I know the courses caddies are involved in crime as well because they were in caddy outfits when robbing the neighbors house and I saw this first hand.
These figures could improve drastically if a security company was based inside the golf course and whoever offers that service will change the values of all those properties bordering the golf course. Those properties are not the value they should hold and sell for bargain prices until you find out why they are so cheap.
