Photo: Pixabay
BLUE LIGHTS: New SAPS concept boosts police visibility
The SAPS is launching a new blue lights concept that will raise visibility to fight violent crimes such as assault and armed robbery.
Photo: Pixabay
The South African Police Service(SAPS) will launch a new ‘Country in Blue’ blue lights operational concept to heighten police visibility across the country this weekend.
According to a statement released by the KZN SAPS on Thursday the concept is being launched in Inanda in KwaZulu-Natal under the theme “extending our reach through blue light visibility”.
“The Country in Blue Operational Concept will see all operational SAPS vehicle’s being driven by members of the SAPS with the emergency warning blue lights switched on in order to enhance and heighten police visibility from sunset to sunrise (between 6pm and 6am).
“This concept aims to prevent and combat a host of crimes which include all 17 community reported crimes. These include GBVF, aggravated robberies such as carjacking, business and residential robberies commonly known as trio crimes as well as tracing of wanted suspects and the proliferation of firearms,” the SAPS said.
The leadership of the Ministry of Police and the SAPS will lead the launch of the new operational blue lights concept in Inanda. The Minister of Police, General Bheki Cele, the Deputy Minister of Police, Mr Cassel Mathale and the National Commissioner of SAPS, General Khehla Sitole are expected to attend the event on Saturday 25 September.
When Cele, who announced the 2021 first quarter crime statistics in August he said that it was important to contextualise the data, which showed a 60,6% spike in contact crimes, including murder and attempted murder, compared to the low-crime, level 5 lockdown period in the first quarter of 2020. A more realistic comparison showed that murders had spiked by 6,7% compared to the same period in 2019, Cele said.
“It is important for us to give this particular context and adequate explanation upfront, to mitigate the shock and fears that may arise at this juncture. Equally the lockdown crime trends and figures should not be thrown into the political battlefield for poor political point scoring but instead this should begin to properly define the impact of the pandemic,” Cele said.
