{"id":168822,"date":"2020-10-15T02:29:02","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T00:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/homes-port-elizabeth-petrol-bombed\/"},"modified":"2020-10-15T02:29:02","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T00:29:02","slug":"residents-call-on-cele-to-act-after-homes-in-port-elizabeth-petrol-bombed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/residents-call-on-cele-to-act-after-homes-in-port-elizabeth-petrol-bombed\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents call on Cele to act after homes in Port Elizabeth petrol-bombed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Mkhuseli%20Sizani\/pepetrolbombed-mkhuselisizani-202010140.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/residents-call-on-cele-to-act-after-homes-in-port-elizabeth-petrol-bombed.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Homes in Port Elizabeth were petrol bombed last week. Photo: Mkhuseli Sizani<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Residents of Booysens Park and Pollar Park in Port Elizabeth have called for the army to be sent in to reduce crime.<\/li>\n<li>This follows the torching of several homes last week, after the shooting of a gang member.<\/li>\n<li>Residents say Police Minister Bheki Cele promised to build a new police station and to deploy the army.<\/li>\n<li>Cele\u2019s office says the construction of the police station is going through \u201cnormal processes\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p>Residents of ward 29 in Port Elizabeth have accused Police Minister Bheki Cele of reneging on a promise they say he made in 2018 to send in the army to reduce escalating crime in the area. They also demanded a new police station be built in Booysens Park.<\/p>\n<p>This follows an incident last Thursday when a group of about 200 people from Booysens Park and neighbouring Pollar Park petrol bombed and stoned four houses. Two of the homes were completely gutted while one was partially burnt and the other had its windows smashed in.<\/p>\n<p>The chaos followed the shooting of a gang member from Pollar Park last Monday at Qunu taxi rank. A woman, who allegedly witnessed the shooting, was confronted by gang members to identify the shooter. When she was unable to do so, the group attacked her home.<\/p>\n<p>The woman\u2019s 50-year-old mother recalled returning home on Thursday to find her four-roomed house in flames. Both their names have been withheld because of safety concerns. \u201cI was called at about 5:35pm by my neighbours. My neighbour said it was an armed mob from Pollar Park. She asked me to ask the Gelvandale Police Station police to escort me with fire fighters because the two fire engines and two police vans from Bethelsdorp were chased away by the gang,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The woman said everything inside her house was set alight. \u201cAccording to my neighbours the gang also fired several shots at my son as he got off his work transport,\u201d she said. The woman said she was escorted to her house by police and emergency services.<\/p>\n<p>The mother, who worked as a domestic worker, said the gang had traumatised her family and destroyed their entire life\u2019s savings and a R23,000 stokvel collection. \u201cI am as good as dead. My daughter has a drug problem and this gang wanted her to tell them who shot their member at the taxi rank. She told them that she does not know the suspects but the gangs chose to destroy my house. I am left with the only clothes that I am wearing. All my important documents including my ID, were burnt in the fire,\u201dshe said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI blame Bheki Cele. In 2018 at Booysens Park Community Hall, we told him that Bethelsdorp Police are useless and corrupt. We were being charged a protection fee for having beautiful houses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCele promised to build us a police station which is currently under construction. He also promised to deploy soldiers. But that never happened and we are still living in fear,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheading\">Gang targets Marikana family<\/h2>\n<p>After destroying the Booysens Park home, the gang went to Marikana, apparently in search of a man named Menalik \u201cMena\u201d Malieba.<\/p>\n<p>Resident Shandre Oliphant said she saw three groups coming into the community carrying firearms and petrol bombs. They torched the first house and then shot at the electricity transformer, leaving the street in darkness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor seven years we have been living here and crime was too much because those gangs terrorise us and the police are scared of them. They were robbing immigrant spaza shop owners and our homes but ever since Mena and his group started to fight against these gangs, crime dropped drastically,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Malieba told GroundUp that since the age of 15 he had witnessed his community falling prey to gangs. \u201cI called a meeting on Friday with the residents and asked for a way forward because we cannot continue living like this. The police do nothing about these gangs. Immigrant spaza shop owners, loan sharks and residents with beautiful houses are asked protection fees by these gangs. We are not gangsters but we are fighting against the gangs,\u201d Mena said.<\/p>\n<p>Police spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidu urged residents to stop making allegations against the Bethelsdorp Police. Naidu said that only one case of arson had been opened last week and denied that police did not intervene against gangs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolice are urging residents to report the culprits so that arrests can be made. In many instances, the residents do not open cases.\u201d He said criminals were living in the community and should be reported by community members. \u201cThe community police forum and the police are working closely with community leaders in that area,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>In response to Cele\u2019s promise to build a police station, his spokesperson Lirandzu Themba said: \u201cThis project is still going through normal and due processes. There have been several multi-disciplinary stabilization interventions in the affected northern areas. The deployment of the army is not up to the Minister, he cannot make that call on his own as it is the prerogative of the President.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article-copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2020 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/residents-call-on-cele-to-act-after-homes-in-port-elizabeth-petrol-bombed.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Homes in Port Elizabeth were petrol bombed last week. Photo: Mkhuseli Sizani Residents of Booysens Park and Pollar Park in Port Elizabeth have called for the army to be sent in to reduce crime. This follows the torching of several homes last week, after the shooting of a gang member. Residents say Police Minister Bheki [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":168823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-168822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/residents-call-on-cele-to-act-after-homes-in-port-elizabeth-petrol-bombed.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}