Homes and a vehicle were peppered with bullets and cash left strewn on a Grahamstown street after a shootout with robbers on Friday 31 October.
The incident came minutes after a local construction company employee was robbed in the city around 2pm. The 62-year-old man was assaulted before being robbed of the wages he had brought to pay the workers on site.
Homes and a vehicle were peppered with bullets and cash left strewn on a Grahamstown street after a shootout with robbers on Friday 31 October.
The incident came minutes after a local construction company employee was robbed in the city around 2pm. The 62-year-old man was assaulted before being robbed of the wages he had brought to pay the workers on site.
Grahamstown SAPS Crime Intelligence Officer Milanda Coetzer said in a media statement today that soon after the man and his companion arrived in Holland Street with the wages, two men with handguns confronted them.
They assaulted one and fled with the bags of cash, Coetzer said.
“They sped away in a white Mercedes-Benz which had been parked around the corner and drove away in the general direction of the CBD,” she said.
Minutes after the alarm was raised, Grahamstown security company, Hi-Tec identified the vehicle in Sani Street, Joza.
“The Hi-Tec armed response staff followed the vehicle to Extension 4, where a shoot-out occurred after the suspects initiated an attack on the armed response members,” Coetzer said. “Several shots were fired and the Hi-Tec vehicle, as well as the walls of the surrounding residential homes, were damaged.”
During the shootout, some of the wage envelopes fell from the Mercedes and were left strewn across the road..
No injuries were reported, Coetzer said.
The car turned around in a side street and left.
Hi -Tec’s vehicle had been incapacitated, however, and they were forced to watch the getaway car as it disappeared.
“Our patrol car spotted the vehicle in the Joza area and a shootout ensued when they saw our men coming for them,” said Hi-Tec’s Kenny Knoetze said.
“A Hi-Tec vehicle was [left]with six bullet holes, but luckily no one was injured,” he said.
Knoetze said the Hi-Tec team managed to retrieve some of the money that fell during the shootout.
“There were four men in total in the car they used an automatic rifle and two handguns and we don’t think they are from around Grahamstown,” Knoetze said.
Coetzer earlier urged members of the public not to approach the white Mercedes Benz FBY229EC, or its occupants, as they were armed and dangerous.
“They will not hesitate to use deadly force if they feel threatened,” she said.
The police request anyone with information to contact Lieutenant Mzwandile Maleki at 082 3199 255.
