Theft of, among others, stun grenades from an SA Police Service (SAPS) base in Eerste Rivier is, according to the Democratic Alliance (DA), part of a pattern of supposedly securely stored weapons “finding their way onto the streets”.
The assertion, in the wake of the theft of a gas launcher as well as multiple rounds of less than lethal ammunition and the stun grenades, by Thomas Walters, DA Western Cape Community Safety and Police Oversight spokesman, highlights “a growing security crisis in SAPS facilities”. He maintains it isn’t “simply theft” and points to the January theft of 15 firearms from an evidence storage locker in the Mitchells Plain police station.
“That same month, DA parliamentary questions revealed that 1 725 officially-issued SAPS firearms were stolen between April 2021 and July 2023 – an average of 61 every month,” he said, adding there is a need to rethink policing in the DA governed province.
Read the full story on ProtectionWeb here.
