Police Minister Bheki Cele has decried the callous murder of 24 police officers in the country in the first three months of 2021.<\/p>\n
Cele highlighted the plague while releasing the crime statistics of the fourth quarter of the 2020\/21 financial year.<\/p>\n
The \u201cunfolding crisis\u201d, he said, had the potential to \u201cthreaten\u201d the country\u2019s peace and stability.<\/p>\n
\u201cEleven of them were killed on duty while preventing, combating or solving a crime,\u201d said the Minister at a briefing on Friday.<\/p>\n
Some of the officers were attacked or ambushed, while conducting patrols, and had their official firearms stolen.<\/p>\n
The National Crime Statistics the Minister released reflect crimes reported to the South African Police Service (SAPS) from 1 January to 31 March 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it cannot be normal that police officers who each day, go out there to protect and to serve, are killed and the public remains unshaken. There is no public outrage, no outcry from activists and NGOs and no one is demanding justice for them,\u201d said Cele.<\/p>\n
The Minister said criminal acts against the police cannot be ignored and should be addressed at community level. <\/p>\n
In addition, he urged the SAPS to improve and cultivate partnerships with communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can maintain and improve these latest crime figures, we will turn the tide against crime. We cannot afford to give criminals terrorising communities, any room to breathe. It is clear they will stop at nothing to get their way, including brazenly attacking you as you do your job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meawhile, the Minister said that the COVID-19 pandemic had claimed the lives of 618 police officers in the past year. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Police Minister Bheki Cele has decried the callous murder of 24 police officers in the country in the first three months of 2021. Cele highlighted the plague while releasing the crime statistics of the fourth quarter of the 2020\/21 financial year. The \u201cunfolding crisis\u201d, he said, had the potential to \u201cthreaten\u201d the country\u2019s peace and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-188938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188938","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=188938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}