I’ve been following two recent events with some interest; not because they’re particularly riveting, but because they reveal a stark contrast in the competence of the Police in two different countries.
On Saturday, 01 May, a potential car bombing in New York’s Times Square was foiled because of an alert street vendor and the work of the Police. Follow-up detective work eventually led to the arrest on 04 May, of a Pakistani man who was within minutes of escaping. But thanks to the brilliant detective work of the New York Police, the suspect was apprehended on board a flight ready to take off. He apparently confessed soon after being arrested. A nice neat, happy ending, in little more than 3 days.
On Monday, 03 May, notorious strip club owner, Lolly Jackson was gunned down in a house in Edenvale, South Africa. The killer apparently called the head of Crime Intelligence, Joey Mabasa to report the shooting on the same night. Speculation about why the killer, an alleged drug dealer and police informant had the number of a senior police officer so readily available, is not important for now; although it may well be at a later stage. What’s important and somewhat nauseating is why the police have still not managed 2 days later, to apprehend a self-confessed killer, who is apparently well-known to them, and driving the victims car around.
Indications are that the police are clueless as to the killer’s whereabouts, and it’s likely they will remain clueless for some time to come. I don’t believe South Africans are too surprised though at the apparent incompetence of the police. It’s all too familiar.
Something really stinks in this whole saga, and it’s not coming from the body of that rotten scoundrel, Lolly Jackson. No, this smell is rather familiar; we get a whiff of it every time a crime is committed in South Africa, and we find the police either unwilling or unable to do something about it.
It’s a national disgrace.
Lenny Says 