Hero calls for action against crime

• Published date: 17 April 2024
• Author: Tara Isaacs tara.isaacs@acm.co.za
• Publication title: Tabletalk

There have been at least six such incidents since February, according to police reports, and the police have warned residents to keep windows and doors locked even when they are at home (“Home invaders target Table View,” Tabletalk, April 10)

Two men were arrested following a robbery at a Cabernet Road house on Sunday April 14, at 8.30pm, when four men barged through an unlocked door and surprised a family as they watched TV, says Table View police spokesperson Captain Adriana Chandler.

The intruders tied up each member of the family and ransacked the home, taking jewellery, liquor, bank cards and cellphones before fleeing, she said.

With the help of armed response officers and a vigilant neighbour, a suspect found in a neighbour’s yard was arrested along with a second suspect who was found down the street, said Captain Chandler.

“Both suspects were brought into the police station and were found in possession of the stolen jewellery,” said Captain Chandler.

The victims had identified both men, aged 27 and 35, from Nyanga, she added.

Table View police chief Colonel Tjikamba Mbangu said the incident showed the importance of “knowing one's neighbour” and working together as a community.

He encouraged residents to join the neighbourhood watch and street groups.

Table View Community Police Forum secretary Toni Buys, a trained first-aider, received an award from CPF chairman David Harrison and Colonel Mbangu on Wednesday April 10 for saving a man’s life after he was shot during a robbery at a Table View home on Friday February 16.

Ms Buys was fetching her son from school when she saw the alert on a WhatsApp group that the man had been shot and needed urgent help.

She asked a neighbour to watch her son and rushed to the scene.

“It was like a scene from a movie, perhaps something we would watch in an ER series,” she said.

Lacking any equipment, she improvised and used plastic shopping bags to apply pressure to the man’s gunshot wound until the...