How I was Mugged in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth)

An armed thug

I BECAME a victim of crime the other night (March17, 2010) when a group of about seven low life oxgen thieves, stopped me in my tracks, took my cellphone, wristwatch and the bangle I was wearing.

One of the thugs dipped his hands in all my pockets hoping to retrieve whatever possession he could pillage. Another stood “guard” with a very big knife that spotted a shiny blade, while the “boss” commanded them to: “Take off his watch, take his phone, search all the pockets.”

I stood there hopeless, knowing very well I could not fight such a big group and in all possibilities the “guard” thug was perhaps waiting for me to “perform” so as to feel justified by stabbing me or slitting my throat or even worse.

This incident occurred in the CBD’s Evatt Street at the back of Mercator Chambers, which is situated next to the Terminus taxi rank. I was walking to my Richmond Hill residence after a workout at Humerail’s Virgin Active. It was about 7.20pm.

When I got home, I called the police with my friend’s cellphone. I was told to wait for the van. And when they finally arrived at about 8.30pm, the police inspector and his constable told me to phone my service provider MTN to report the phone and get some ITC number.

I egged them to go to a nearest pub where I suspected the thugs might be holed, but did not find any of the men. The policemen told me to phone the call centre again once I had gotten the ICT number so that they could open a case.

I phoned MTN, got the ICT number but afraid I would have to wait another hour or so if I called the call centre to dispatch the officers to my house, I asked a friend of mine to take me to Humewood police station.

While a case of robbery has been opened, I shudder to think justice will be served at all. See, the problem is we have got civil servants who think they are doing you a favour by doing their jobs.

This takes us to the case of the police constable who told me he was “just pleasing me by opening this case”, because there were no people who witnessed the incident and that “you say you don’t know these men”.

There is just less that 90 days left before the start of the Fifa World Cup. And already I can see police constables or high ranking officers, telling tourists that have just been robbed of their dollars, euros and other valuables that: “We are just pleasing you by opening this case because... you don’t know the people who robbed you. The case will not progress.”

In fact the police constable went to the extremes of asking me why I was opening the case if I did not know the men who robbed me. Ha? Is the general public supposed to know the name of every thug running amok in Port Elizabeth, so that the next time they get robbed they can confidently say: “It’s Joe Soap who robbed me and he stays in this address...” This lacks commonsense to me.

The Herald newspaper, where I am a reporter, had been inundated with letters from crime victims and concerned Bay residents over the past months, calling for the reintroduction of Omega Security in the Central area. I think it's time I stood up and got counted!