Real issues facing drug and gang war are ignored

PROPER policing is not rocket science.

- NICHOLAS GOTSELL

It requires, inter alia, three things: resources, transparency and priorities aligned to public safety; not to politics. 10111 call centres must answer calls. Investigators must have vehicles. K9s must be trained and deployed. Flying Squad must cover crime corridors, not political events. And commanders must be empowered to tell the truth, not silenced by fear.

Cape Town is in the middle of a gang and drug war yet, the South African Police Service (SAPS) metropolitan area has only one operational narcotics sniffer dog. One. This in a city where drugs fuels majority of violent crimes. The rest of the K9 unit is similarly under resourced. It is a policing crisis hiding in plain sight and there appears to be disinterest in asking why the most effective tools against drugs and gangs are being kept idle.

Last month, my colleagues and I attended the court appearance of the man and woman accused of murdering 7-year-old Lolitha from Khayelitsha. She was raped and murdered with a screwdriver. Lolitha’s gruesome and senseless murder highlights the very best and the very worst of policing in the Western Cape under the direction of Provincial Police Commissioner, Thembsile Patekile.

The best? Officers of the SAPS attached to Harare police station in Khayelitsha, managed to find Lolitha’s body and crucial evidence within days after her disappearance - against all odds. They deployed one of only three of the province's biological fluid K9 dogs, Tina. Tina serves the entire metropolitan area in a specialist SAPS unit that should be at the front line of every major investigation. Without her, the chances of securing evidence would have been far less.