Tributes honouring police officer, Constable Asanda Siyoko (30), poured in when news broke that she was shot and killed on Tuesday night [June 9] during a patrol in Crossroads, Nyanga.
National Police Commissioner, General Khehla John Sitole, said in a statement that her and her colleagues came under fire while patrolling at a spaza shop contravening the Disaster Risk Management Regulations.
“They went in to investigate in terms of the Disaster Management Regulations when a man emerged from behind them and started shooting at the members. The Constable was seriously wounded and she died later on,” said he said.
Other police members fired shots at the fleeing suspect. He fell a short distance away from the scene and was transported to a medical facility. The suspect, who is 22 years old, remains in hospital under police guard.
“It is disheartening when those who are entrusted to protect communities are attacked while executing their duties,” said Sitole.
Investigations into this shooting continued and two other suspects, aged 24 and 28 respectively, were subsequently arrested.
SAPS officers and colleagues were saddened by the news of the Constable’s death.
“RIP, my colleague. Saddened that you are gone from us. God be with the family as our system fails us as police. Tomorrow the suspect walks free after taking one of us down,” one officer said on the official Western Cape SAPS Facebook page. “Who’s next? Killers and law breakers have more rights in our country. To our state and managment its only another number. But to us at its a person; a friend and colleague.”
“RIP, my colleague. My condolences to her family and colleagues and well done to the SAPS members – good work for apprehending the suspects so quickly. They must not get any bail and they must feel that big arm of the law and the justice system please; they don’t feel nothing for the man and woman in blue, it is so sad and she was so young,” another wrote.