{"id":169591,"date":"2020-10-21T21:02:31","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T19:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/port-elizabeth-family-lose-breadwinner-in-taxi-shooting\/"},"modified":"2020-10-21T21:02:31","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T19:02:31","slug":"port-elizabeth-family-lose-breadwinner-in-taxi-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/port-elizabeth-family-lose-breadwinner-in-taxi-shooting\/","title":{"rendered":"Port Elizabeth family lose \u201cbreadwinner\u201d in taxi shooting"},"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\/port-elizabeth-family-lose-breadwinner-in-taxi-shooting.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">This home was petrol bombed in Booysens Park, Port Elizabeth, earlier this month. Archive photo: Mkhuseli Sizani<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A Port Elizabeth man was shot at a local taxi rank on 5 October and died in hospital three days later.<\/li>\n<li>After the shooting, nearly 200 people petrol bombed and stoned four houses in the area.<\/li>\n<li>The family blame this on police at Bethelsdorp Police Station for not acting swiftly in the case.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p>The family of a Port Elizabeth man, whose deadly shooting allegedly led to the petrol bombing and stoning of four houses, are still struggling with the loss of their breadwinner.<\/p>\n<p>They are demanding justice for his death and blame police at Bethelsdorp Police Station for not acting swiftly in the case. Police have refuted the allegation.<\/p>\n<p>On 5 October, Donovan Jenmeker was shot at the Qunu taxi rank where he worked as a taxi conductor. Soon after the 26-year-old died in hospital on 8 October, a group of about 200 people from Pollar Park, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/homes-port-elizabeth-petrol-bombed\/\">petrol bombed<\/a> four houses in Booysens Park and Marikana. Two of the homes were completely gutted while one was partially burnt and the other had its windows smashed in.<\/p>\n<p>A woman who had witnessed the shooting was approached by the Pollar Park gang, but she had been unable to identify for them who had shot Jenmeker. Her home was one of those torched.<\/p>\n<p>Jenmeker\u2019s mother, Ronwyn Kahari, 53, and brother Cedric Jenmeker, 34, recalled the day of the shooting. Kahari said she heard three gunshots at about 9:30am on 5 October. \u201cI ran inside the house for cover. A few minutes after the shots, Donovan\u2019s taxi driver came to tell me that my son was shot in the stomach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jenmeker was rushed to Livingstone Hospital in a taxi, where he later died. \u201cMy son was not a gangster. He was a breadwinner. Every day he would bring me R50. I am unemployed and R50 makes a huge difference,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Cedric said: \u201cDonovan passed away because the bullet damaged his liver and lungs. When I saw him in the hospital, I just cried uncontrollably. Then started drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said the family had left Bloemendal seven years ago to escape gangs. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe that my brother could die here like that or that his death could spark violence due to the police\u2019s failure to do their job properly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>On 12 October, four days after Jenmeker\u2019s death, Cedric said he went to Bethelsdorp Police Station to report the incident. \u201cTo my surprise, the police were not aware of the shooting. They only opened a murder docket for Donovan after I reported his death. The detective told us that the hospital should have reported the shooting the day my brother was admitted in hospital. The detective ordered the officer opening the case to go with me to Livingstone Hospital and open the case there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel sorry for people whose houses were torched and we condemned what happened. We never asked anyone to go and take the law into their own hands. All we want is justice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about claims made by Jenmeker\u2019s family, police spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidu said, \u201cThe deceased was shot and taken to hospital by private transport. No one reported the incident to police therefore the scene was not attended to by police. Police became aware of the incident only when the deceased family reported his death to them on 12 October.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe hospital does not open cases when patients are brought in with gunshot wounds. They only provide medical attention. The family should have informed police of the incident on the day of the shooting to start investigations immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Naidu has urged anyone with information on the shooting to contact Bethelsdorp Detective Warrant Officer Du Toit at 082 442 1663.<\/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\/port-elizabeth-family-lose-breadwinner-in-taxi-shooting.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This home was petrol bombed in Booysens Park, Port Elizabeth, earlier this month. Archive photo: Mkhuseli Sizani A Port Elizabeth man was shot at a local taxi rank on 5 October and died in hospital three days later. After the shooting, nearly 200 people petrol bombed and stoned four houses in the area. The family [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169592,"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-169591","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\/port-elizabeth-family-lose-breadwinner-in-taxi-shooting.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169591","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=169591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}