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Posted

Monday, January 11, 2010

 

Crime South Africa: A Personal Encounter

 

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2il26hgSIcA/S0pCZqbeg8I/AAAAAAAAAyc/kLlG7nWxWnI/s320/mb.jpg

 

I

received this email from an anonymous source. It was a private email,

between friends. I have changed the names, to protect the innocent. It

is one of those typical life-changing events, that go unnoticed, and

yet are responsible for so many South Africans deciding to emigrate.

My

heart goes out to this family, and if you happen to read this, rest

assured there are many others that have had similar experiences, who

will attest that you will find a better life elsewhere. Fortunately for

you, this time it ended well. I hope your threshold has been breached.

Don't slip back into complacency.

Hello, hope you had a good new year etc etc.

 

So

I don?t know how to tell you this other than to just say it because if

I don't - the bush telegraph will be telling you sooner or later.

 

We haven't had the greatest start to 2010 - on Sunday morning, Hubby was hijacked (bike-jacked) whilst out cycling in a "safe, secure" cycle place

that has been created for the safety of cyclists in Johannesburg - to

prevent attacks of this nature which are increasing steadily by the day.

 

HE IS FINE, AND COMPLETELY PHYSICALLY UNINJURED IN ANY WAY

 

He

is in training for the Sani-to-Sea bike race that he does each year,

and was going to go do some hill training out near Hartebeespoort Dam,

but at the last minute, changed his mind, because he felt a bit "weird"

and thought it would be too isolated so he went to Northern Farms instead.

 

He

had been on his bike for about 15 minutes, cycling in amongst literally

100's of other cyclists (single riders, groups, women by themselves,

families with children etc) - he was going uphill and had pulled away

from the majority of the other cyclists and was in that psychological

gap where, for a few minutes, he was by himself.

 

He heard a

whistle behind him and started to turn around to see who it was, as two

other guys (yes, they were black) ran out from the cover of the bushes.

One had a gun, the other a knife and the third one, the "spotter" who

whistled, had a screw driver. He stopped immediately and threw his bike

at them, but then became icily calm and did what they screamed at him

to do. They dragged him off into the mielie field, tied him up with

packing tape, completely stripped him of all his cycling stuff -

helmet, glasses, gloves, polar heart rate monitor, backpack, cellphone,

my car keys, cycling socks and shoes. They left his lycra pants and

cycle shirt on him.

 

They had him tied up and stood on his head

to shut him up, with the gun and screwdriver constantly at his head and

neck. He was held like that for over an hour whilst these animals

waited for a gap to escape - ironically they couldn?t go because there

were too many cyclists just metres away, laughing and chatting and

cycling back and forth - the one black guy then received a text message

on his cellphone and the two of them gathered all his stuff and bike

and ran to the public road adjoining the farm, hopped the fence and

deposited the stolen stuff into a waiting, clapped out old truck that

had driven up.

Whilst

they were there, two women cyclists came along, stopped, and proceeded

to shout and scream at them about private property and loitering etc

etc. The whole time he said all he could think about was that they were

going to become victims as well and have even worse things happen to

them. They left, and the guy with the gun told him to stay still and he

ran off, and the truck left.

 

He managed to untie himself and ran

back onto the cycle track and another cyclist stopped and assisted him.

Once the guy ascertained he was ok, the guy left him with other people,

and cycled back to the parking lot, got his vehicle and drove back to

fetch him. He had borrowed someone else's cellphone to phone me and

tell me what happened, and I drove out there in his car with spare keys

for my car.

We

went to the nearest police station to report it and that was a joke.

Total and utter lack of interest, he basically told us that he didn't

care - it was just a bicycle and what was his problem, he survived it!!

This is our SAPS, the men and woman out there who protect us. Anyway

enough of that, he filed a report, opened a case and we left.

 

His

work has this "employee wellness programme" in place to help staff deal

with trauma that occurs in any walk of their life, be it work related

or home related, and we insisted that he contact them and go for trauma

counselling because he is in a mess psychologically. He went yesterday

for the first time and the shrink says he seems to be coping fine, he

is displaying all the expected reactions and behaviours and it can take

up to 6 weeks for things to return to "normal" whatever that might be.

 

He

is such a strong person and not prone to emotional behaviour (unlike

me, who arrived at the Farm and proceeded to swat him across the

shoulder and yell at him and say that he is NEVER going to ride that

effing bloody bicycle in that effing bloody unsafe farm again .....)

anyway, he is not sleeping well at night, still jumpy etc. I organised

for him to go to our physiotherapist and get worked over because he is

extremely stressed plus his shoulders and neck are wrenched from being

tied up and kicked and stood upon. He went back to work this morning

and I guess now we just take it day by day.

 

Please don?t yell at

us about emigrating, we became complacent and life was good again here

so the other stuff got put on hold, now its a different story - there

is NO other family in Johannesburg like us who are more streetwise and

vigilant and aware of crime etc, and yet it happened to us in spite of

everything we did to prevent it. We have lived in this vacuumed bubble

for 8 years, always thinking it would never happen to us - so maybe

this is the wake up call we needed to get our asses into gear. Hubby is

ready 100%, I was the one who always wanted to go and I always felt a

part of him was holding back, now he is ready and prepared to go

wherever we can get in.

 

He says he can live absolutely anywhere

in the world where it doesn?t involve having a screwdriver and a knife

shoved into him and gun at his forehead for an hour whilst some asshole

black piece of sh*t threatens to kill him for an effing bicycle.

 

He

needs a few more days to come to terms with it, I have never seen him

like this before and it scares me so much. He comes across as being so

strong and in control because we need to keep it as low key as possible

for the kids sake - the psychologist said that because junior is only

9, he'll see it as a sort of "adventure", but his sister is older, she

is more aware that he could have died so easily and it is bound to

affect her more.

 

I have this morbid fear of how we go about

getting out of here now, I want to, need to, go NOW but I just don?t

know how to do it and I'm scared we won?t ever be able to leave. I'm

emotional and angry now, I haven?t really reacted other than swatting

him on the farm the day it happened.

 

So, that's our news in a very big nutshell :(

 

Anyway I better go now and go make breakfast etc for the kids.

Chat soon.
Posted

Sad indeed.  I have many friends leaving SA for this exact reason.  To some the same happened (robbed by gun-point) and others are just scared it will happen.

 

Anyone aware of any incidents that took place this last weekend after the precautionary measures been put in place?
Posted
many many posts' date=' just look under Northern farm

 

they have also now introduced additional security measures
[/quote']

 

Extremely effective I might add. Unfortunately amongst the support Simon also got a number of stupid remarks. Like DEMANDS that he erect a fence around the entire property and an insinuation that somehow the Farm was respinsible for what happened.

 

Speaking for myself I still firmly believe that NF is one of the overall safest riding spots in Jhb.

Add to that, the steps taken to proactively combat this were timeously responded to by NF. I am not changing my riding to suit some tossers out for what they think may be easy gains.

 

I sincerly hope Mapogo catch these f****s !!

 

For the guy attacked, I sincerly hope you and your family work through this!
Posted

A very sad state of affairs.A year later (7 January) and Sleeping Beauty still carries the trauma and injuries she suffered when she was attacked. For a cell phone!!

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