Overview
- Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia met SAPS leadership and local stakeholders in Johannesburg and announced a funded, revised strategy to counter gang networks.
- Police leaders said anti-gang units will be reinforced and investigations will lean on intelligence-driven operations through Crime Intelligence and detective services.
- The engagements followed recent mass shootings that left two teenagers dead and five injured in Westbury, and six people dead in a Reiger Park drive-by.
- Cachalia acknowledged a trust gap with residents that hampers witness cooperation and makes prosecutions harder.
- Johannesburg officials revived the city’s drug action committee and pledged bylaw enforcement, sports programmes and stop-and-search operations, while a local councillor urged SANDF deployment and a state of disaster.