New police unit to tackle crime in three minutes
The Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) has
established an undercover response unit to tackle crime in the Johannesburg
Central Business District (CBD).
The undercover unit will consist of 80 handpicked JMPD officers who will deal with criminal activities recorded on the city's (Closed Circuit Television) CCTV cameras.
Johannesburg's Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Public Safety, Micheal Sun, says the police will be deployed both undercover and in marked vehicles in the city hotspots like Yoeville, Hillbrow, Doornfontein, and Braamfontein.
"Whenever there are incidents of street mugging, hijacking, smash-and-grab being sighted on the CCTV cameras, this reactional unit will be immediately dispatched to attend. We have set ourselves a target of three minutes where these reaction officers will attend to deal with these incidences," says Sun.
Sun says the inner city of Johannesburg has been left to decay for far too long and the hope is that street muggings and vehicle robberies will now become something of the past.
Sun says the plan is to expand the unit.
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