Crime Watch

Be very, very vigilant because the authorities aren’t

I had a funny thought recently. I thought: Well, you know crime is really bad when celebrities are murdered and robbed, because then it really means it’s an epidemic. It’s everywhere if even famous people are everyday victims of crime. Well, guess what?

Here’s a list* (just a short one) of celebrities or simply well known people that have been either murdered or burgled this year:
1) Taliep Petersen (murdered)
2) Judge Bernard Ngoepe and his 4 year old daughter smothered under a bed while the domestic worker was raped, then robbed (murder, rape and robbery)
3) Brett Goldin (actor – Straight outta Benoni) and Richard Bloom (Production manager of Craig Port clothing) both found with bullets shot point blank into the back of their heads (murder)
4) Kurt Darren (burgled by 4 armed robbers)
5) Soli Philander’s mother (brutally attacked and murdered)
6) Megan Herselman (journalist) was on her way from Johannesburg International Airport to a guesthouse (killed in a rain of bullets)
7) Ryk Neethling (robbed twice)
8) Naledi Pandor (Minister of Education) had two laptops stolen amongst other items (burglary)
9) Ngconde Balfour (Minister of Correctional Services) had a trophy stolen that was awarded to him for his work in correctional services – additional security might be a good idea Mr Minister! (robbery)
10) Nadine Gordimer was locked in a store room while burglars stole jewellery and cash (burglary)
11) Last and worst, Nonceba Mzondo, the daughter of a popular jazz musician McCoy Mrubata was beaten to death and her eyes cut out (murder)

I’ve said it before: there is a culture of dishonesty in this country. Perhaps, to truly reflect the level of dishonesty, we should say: there’s a culture of extreme criminality amongst South Africans. It may not be fair to suggest that the average South African is a criminal, but certainly a substantial fraction is.

Swimming pool

Here’s an everyday example of just how prevalent this attitude to criminality is. I went to do some swimming training at the local public pool, and purposely went when most of the public have left (that is, just before closing time).
My swimming partner and I purposefully put our bags about 10 steps up on the stadium’s seats, explicitly so that anyone walking by would have to walk up a few steps to reach the bags.
I told my swimming buddy Mark to try to keep an eye on our bags while swimming. We started off with two sets of 500m each, and before we’d finished the first set (in other words, after about 5 minutes) I noticed a young boy standing halfway up the stadium’s steps, apparently staring into space. I stopped where I was in the water, and stood watching. The boy stood around aimlessly, and after about two minutes, walked slowly away and then abandoned the stadium completely.

Then we started our second set, and I was halfway into it when a young boy approached our bags directly. Once again I stopped, saw him glance back (he was right beside our things, less than a foot away from Mark’s bag, and there were no other bags in the stadium seats), and then saw him walk an elaborate arc up the steps (apparently to nowhere), then right and then exiting the stadium seating completely.

I went on with my set but within about 4 lengths Mark had stopped and then I stopped too. This time there were two, a little girl walking right beside our bags (about two metres above ground level), and another boy, older, on lookout, perched above her, who was looking straight at us. Both Mark and I stopped, and while we stared at them, they glanced from us into space, and then occasionally back to us. It was obvious that they didn’t have any proper purpose to be doing what they were doing, because when we watched them they suddenly seemed to not know what to do, where to look, or where to walk to. After two or three minutes both gradually exited the stadium. When we finished our set I said to Mark (who has just returned from Scotland to spend Christmas with his parents): “So you see just how quickly the people here try to steal your stuff. It’s almost instantaneous. Leave your stuff somewhere and immediately they’re trying to take it.”

Also disturbing is that all of these ‘perpetrators’ were young children, probably no older than 15 years old. Mark commented that one of the kids he’d been eyeballing gave him the thumbs-up signal as he walked past and left the pool. Mark said: “Does he think I don’t know what he was trying to do?”

The lesson to learn is that being very very vigilant is the answer.

Farm murders

18 farmers have been murdered in the region during the last year, 4 in the last 2 months. On a daily basis the local paper reports an old woman or old man being shot in the head in their homes. Typically these pensioners are in big houses by themselves.

2010 hanging in the balance

I don’t really see any sign that the crime fever is going to go away any time soon. I don’t get any sense of police fever. I never see the police, so I wonder where they are and what they are doing. The figureheads certainly talk the talk. Recently a Belgian man attending a swimming gala in Durban was attacked by a gang of youths, and had to watch how his fiancé was raped by a group of these youngsters while he was held at knifepoint. She was raped on Durban’s promenade, and he said he could see, right behind them, guests standing on the balcony of the hotel he was staying in. He also said that he didn’t see any sign of the police and the fact that that rape happened in the open and that no one did anything was particularly disturbing.

Local authorities said that tourists should have known not to be out late at night, but it’s obvious that if tourists visit the country in 2010, are they to be expected to remain indoors after dark? Meanwhile two questions must be asked:

1) Are there elements in authority who should be prosecuting and catching criminals but instead they’re profiting (aka taking bribes) from the lawless in this country?
2) Should more local communities take the law in their own hands?

*Stats from ‘Bekendes vanjaar slagoffers’ by Malani Venter, Volksblad, 20 Dec 06, p7