Public safety questioned amid police robbery
Pini Bothoko | Monday July 4, 2022 06:00
On Tuesday at around 2:30am four men allegedly stormed the station and proceeded to tie down the female police officers with cables and locked them at the radio room and headed to the armoury.
The embarrassing incident took social media by storm with members of the public having mixed feelings over what transpired with some saying they have lost faith on the service questioning how they are going to redeem themselves while some felt that it was an unfortunate incident and the police are not immune to theft incidents.
The dejected public questioned how the service is going to protect the nation if they are failing to protect themselves. For years, the Botswana Police Service (BPS) has been ranked the best service despite being ranked 47 out of 127 countries in the World Internal Security and Police Index (WISPI). One wonders what this means to the country’s security.
The disappointed public further questioned how a whole police station with trained police officers could be robbed putting the whole nation at risk. Some suspected foul play stating that there might be an inside job questioning how an armoury was left unguarded and an outsider was able to access it. Furthermore, the public blamed the government for failing to install CCTV cameras with night vision and audio in all police stations whilst having weapons of war that cost a lot of money.
Members of the public feared the robbers are going to form a very strong rebel force mercenary company capable of toppling the government. Members of the public called on the government to consider arming all police officers on duty with guns stating that there was nothing that the officers who were on duty that fateful night could have done.
The police officers are provided with guns to use when necessary and return them thereafter only when attending reports of people believed to be armed. Despite armed robbery incidents spiralling out of control, recently when appearing before Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the acting police commissioner, Phemelo Ramakorwane said there is no provision as yet for police officers to be armed during patrols.
Then, Ramakorwane stated that even though the streets are full of arms and ammunition, the BPS has not yet found it necessary to equip police officers with guns during patrols.
He further conceded that they continue to recover arms of war from armed robbery suspects who could be involved in different types of crime, especially money heists. “Despite being overwhelmed with organised crime incidents, we believe that crime in Botswana is still under control but we have made it a provision for Special Support Group (SSG) to be armed during patrols,” Ramakorwane said then.
Asked whether the armoury was not locked or unguarded, the Officer Commanding of No: 4 District, senior superintendent Sarah Gabathuse told Mmegi that investigations into the matter are still at initial stage hence could not disclose such information to the public.
“We have launched a manhunt to locate and arrest the suspects because we do not know their agenda after targeting our armoury and stole guns. This is not a good thing to have happened.
We cannot disclose circumstances surrounding what really transpired because it might compromise our investigations,” Gabathuse said. She added that it appears that the robbers had targeted the station’s armoury because they officers who were on duty had mobile phones in their possession but they did not attempt to steal them.