Westlake Village residents have started a petition for a satellite police station to tackle rampant crime in the township.
This follows a community meeting with the Kirstenhof police and community police forum late last month, when Kirstenhof police chief Lieutenant Colonel Edgar Jones noted that a feasibility study about five years earlier had concluded that Westlake Village was too small and did not fit the criteria for a satellite station although he added that such an assessment would need to be revisited (“Police accused of failing Westlake,” Bulletin, October 5).
Tensions ran high at that meeting as it came just three days after the violent deaths of a 15-year-old boy and a 26-year-old man.
Residents complained that alcohol and drugs fuelled crime in the area and police lacked the manpower to deal with it and were generally unresponsive.
Westlake Village, with its 640-odd RDP homes was meant to house 3000 people from a nearby squatter camp, but it has swelled in size to over 20 000 people, according to the Westlake United Church Trust, and many live in clusters of four to five shacks in the yards of the RDP homes.
Residents say crime is out of control and they have formed street committees in an effort to deal with it.
The first committee started in Flamingo Street after Annie van Rooyen’s decomposed body was found under her neighbour’s bed in September last year, said Sipho Stemele, a Flamingo Street Committee member.
The street committee has regular meetings to discuss issues and plan night watches. It is also pooling funds to install security cameras.
More street committees have followed. There are now nine, and Thandinkosi Mhlaba has been promoting them after he foiled three men trying to break into a shop opposite his home in August. That had been the final straw for him, he said.
“Afterwards I took a video, and then I shared it on Westlake Ikasi Lam Facebook group, and from that day onwards, I started driving the groups. That is when I got involved with the idea. I assisted in spreading the word out and created additional street committees as well.
“We have a collective WhatsApp group for all chairpersons, which we are hoping will form the main representative body of Westlake, but at the moment, we are waiting for all street groups to be finalised. One or two other streets still needed to be officiated by their street members. After that, we will be meeting as the chairpersons, and then there should be a way forward. These types of things you don’t want to drive, you kind of want them to drive themselves together with everyone else being included in the process.”
The street committees are now helping to muster support for the petition calling for the satellite police station. The chairpersons have been given petition papers to share within the community, according to Muneebah Ganief, who chairs the committee for Krestel, Poplar and Cedar streets and Otto Crescent.
Darryl Lawrence, a Kirstenhof resident who drew up the petition, hopes it will garner 10 000 signatures before it is presented to the Kirstenhof police chief with copies sent to the provincial police commissioner. He said the request for the satellite station should be taken seriously if it had the backing of the community. Mr Lawrence said he had been involved in helping Westlake Village since 2019.
“I’m waiting for the station commander to contact me to inform me what the next steps are,” he said.
Kirstenhof police spokeswoman Sergeant Deirdre Solomon said the police and CPF, after hearing the residents’ concerns, had sent a letter to the SAPS provincial office motivating for a satellite station in Westlake Village. They were still waiting for a response, she said, adding that the police had meanwhile increased patrols in Westlake Village and a joint SAPS-Law Enforcement roadblock had been held in Westlake Drive on Thursday October 5.
The following evening, Kirstenhof’s visible policing commander and other police officers had joined neighbourhood watch foot patrols in Westlake Village, she said.
Westlake residents like Matthew Adams hope a satellite station will yield quicker responses from SAPS in future.
“When we call to SAPS, the answer is never immediate, there is always an issue. That’s why when some residents find somebody stealing or breaking into somebody’s house instead of calling the police, people start beating the suspect up due to the lack of response.”
He said he did not condone vigilantism, but it was born out of the frustration felt in the community.
Signatures for the petition are being collected until the end of the month. To get in touch with a street committee chair email Westlakedevforum@gmail.com
