A total of 69 suspects were arrested in Lwandle following a night of pandemonium that resulted in the looting of Big Daddy’s Liquor warehouse along Hlathi Drive and setting fire to a refuse station at the Somerset Crossing Shopping Centre.
There was a heavy police presence on Friday morning (11 August) at the centre, in Nomzamo adjacent to the N2 highway, where the situation was tense as business owners and residents made sense of what had occurred throughout the night.
According to Jermaine Carelse, spokesperson for the City of Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue Services, Strand firefighters responded to the scene following an emergency call of a building alight around 20:25 on Thursday night (10 August). However, it was found to be a large number of stacked cardboard boxes burning adjacent to the Boxer store. Carelse said the fire was extinguished just before midnight and the firefighting crew was escorted from the area as a large crowd had gathered and tried to stone their vehicles.
Looters were met with heavily armed police who used rubber bullets to disperse the crowd and restored some order to the township later on that night. It was unclear what triggered their action.
“It was an absolute war zone,” said John Nemo, owner of Root’s Grill take-away, also situated at Somerset Crossing.
“It appears after looting the warehouse they tried to get into the Boxer liquor store at the centre, but were stopped just in time by police. The centre was mostly unaffected except for the refuse station, which was set alight and damaged the walls on the exterior.”
Nemo said he got a call at about 19:40 on Thursday night and was informed of unrest in the area.
“Earlier in the day there was an attempted robbery in the centre, when some people grabbed liquor and tried to run,” he said. “It appeared as if they wanted to start a commotion so others would follow suit and loot as well. But it didn’t work and they were apprehended.” Nemo speculated the township appeared volatile following a week-long taxi strike that left many unable to get to work and earn an income.
Management of Big Daddy’s Liquor Warehouse said on Friday morning they were still assessing losses and unable to comment immediately.
Sergeant Mthokozisi Gama, spokesperson for the Lwandle police, said, together with POPS unit members, they arrested 69 suspects for public violence the previous night.
“Police members were deployed in Lwandle policing precinct as the community members gathered together into a large group and started burning tyres on the road and barricaded the road with stones,” he said. “The community proceeded to liquor store premises situated on the corner of Hlathi and Solomon Drive, Asanda Village and forcibly gained entry and started looting.” According to Gama, police immediately went to the premises, caught the suspects red-handed and arrested them.
“While arresting them police also confiscated the liquor. They had to fire rubber bullets into the crowd as they had become violent and started throwing stones at police vans. A public-violence case was then opened and another charge of malicious damage to property will be added to the charges. Suspects aged 18 to 49 were arrested and were all due to appear in the Strand Magistrates’ Court once they were charged. Currently our men in blue are still on the scene monitoring the situation.”
