The South African police, the JMPD and other law enforcement agencies have received much-deserved praise for maintaining law and order on the streets of Hillbrow, Yeoville and other surrounding suburbs in the CBD this past New Year’s Eve.
Anti-crime activist, Yusuf Abramjee who is familiar with the chaos of the CBD has attributed the successful New Year’s Eve operations to increased police visibility and presence in crime hotspots in places such as Hillbrow, Yeoville, Berea and other areas.
“The New Year’s Celebrations in Hillbrow were the quietest ever this year. This is to be credited to large police visibility who were out in full force from early evening, right till the early hours of the morning. This most certainly contributed to the peaceful scenes that we have seen Hillbrow and surrounding areas. We know historically, people would throw out fridges and mattresses and microwaves down from their balconies onto the ground,” Abramjee said.
The history of the area has gained worldwide notoriety for this practice which every year results in the injuries and sometimes damaged to cars and other properties.
However, this time around, police report that there was only but one incident in the entire Joburg CBD.
In 2019, IOL reported that New Year's Eve celebrations were marred by the deaths of three people in three separate incidents following reports of more than 100 incidents of assault.
At the time, Joburg Emergency Management Services (EMS) said two of those deaths occurred in Hillbrow, while the third one took place at the City of Joburg’s New Year’s Eve Countdown Concert held at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown.
On Monday, Gauteng Police Commissioner Elias Mawela said that he is satisfied that Hillbrow was free of crime as the country ushered in the new year after he and other law enforcement agencies kept the streets intact with boots on the streets as well as the deployment of police nyalas filling and circling the often dangerous streets of the inner city.
New year crossing with EMS. 01 January 2024. Famous for its extreme New year celebration Hillbrow is the Red Zone that EMS green angles will focus on this year. Picture: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers pic.twitter.com/5kv8pfa5Vp
— The Star (@TheStar_news) January 1, 2024
Ahead of the festive season and during the launch of the safer festive operations, National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola said more police officers on the ground would help bolster SAPS crime prevention efforts.
True to form, Gauteng police together with other law enforcement agencies were out in full force across the city’s identified hotspots in order to curb criminality across the city centre and all the five districts in Gauteng, including, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane, West Rand and Sedibeng.
The Johannesburg District was led by the National Commissioner of SAPS, General Fannie Masemola and Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General Elias Mawela, MEC of Community Safety, Ms Faith Mazibuko and many others for an integrated-multidisciplinary operations that reportedly resulted in the arrest of over 2900 people including 688 wanted suspects that were arrested by the detectives during their tracing operations.
According to Gauteng police spokesperson, Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi some of the arrested suspects were charged with different crimes such as possession of unlicensed and illegal firearms, drunken driving, dealing in drugs, possession suspected stolen property, murder, rape, sexual offences and undocumented persons amongst others.
“The operation also saw the police claiming back the streets of Hillbrow which in the past years has been infamous for reckless and lawlessness during the new year’s eve celebrations.
“Some of the arrested suspects were released after paying fines while the others are expected to appear before various Magistrates' Court with Gauteng from Tuesday, 02 January 2024,“ said Nevhuhulwi.
Saturday Star