994 arrests in 34 days: DA welcomes further LEAP successes
11 July 2023
Today, Western Cape Minister of Community Safety and Police Oversight Reagen Allen announced that the Western Cape’s LEAP officers had arrested 994 suspects and confiscated 18 unlicensed firearms over the period of 29 May to 2 July. Once again, this underlines the sterling commitment of the Western Cape Government’s dedicated crimefighting unit to meaningfully improving the lives of our people.
The vast majority of the arrests were drug-related, with more than 700 suspects taken into custody for possession of or dealing in narcotics. Drugs are known to play a key role in recruiting for gangs, especially amongst our youth, and trafficking in tik and other highly-addictive amphetamines continues to skyrocket in South Africa. As a result, these arrests represent a significant step toward making our communities safer.
Illegal firearms were also confiscated from virtually all of the precincts to which LEAP is deployed, bringing LEAP’s tally of confiscated firearms to nearly 400. As gang-related shootings continue to claim more and more lives – tragically including those of innocent bystanders – the confiscation of these firearms will make perhaps the most direct impact on our communities.
However, it is disquieting to note that these illegal firearms, like all of those confiscated by LEAP thus far, will have to be handed over to the SAPS for processing. They will remain in SAPS’ custody for months on end, before being sent to South Africa’s only recognised firearm destruction facility in Pretoria. Tragically, experience has demonstrated that many of these firearms never make it to destruction sites, instead finding their way back onto the streets through corrupt dealings, or outright negligence. This problem could be quickly and easily solved by the establishment of a firearm destruction site within the Western Cape, but the Police Ministry continue to block this move.
DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Community Safety Gillion Bosman says: “What the successes of LEAP demonstrate is that decentralised policing works. The fact that confiscated illegal firearms can only be destroyed in one location is an apt metaphor for the state of policing in the country: overly-centralised, top heavy, and ineffective. I am thankful that the Western Cape Provincial Powers Bill will soon bring South Africa closer to decentralising policing functions to provincial governments, thus allowing the successes of the LEAP initiative to be replicated on a much greater scale.”
Issued by Gillion Bosman, DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Community Safety, 11 July 2023
