Police arrested three men with unlicensed guns in Scottsdene after four people were shot dead in gang violence there last Thursday.
Officers from the police stabilisation unit made the arrests on Saturday afternoon as part of a crackdown in the wake of Thursday’s shootings in Park Avenue that claimed the lives of a 25-year-old man and three 17-year-old boys.
The officers had been searching the area when they spotted the suspects trying to flee, said provincial police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel André Traut.
They confronted the suspects – aged 23, 24 and 29 – near Bonita Crescent and found two 9mm pistols and .38 Special revolver when the searched them.
Brackenfell police arrested two men for possession of stolen property and one one man for possession of burglary tools on Friday October 27.
On the same day, a security firm nabbed a burglary suspect.
Brackenfell police spokeswoman Captain Erica Crous said officers had been doing routine patrols in Protea Heights at the time.
The police spotted two men walking with trolleys in Kruispad. The men split up when they saw the police, but the officers stopped one of them in Brackenfell Industria. He had a box of tools worth about R1 500 and believed to have been stolen.
“Just around the corner in Kruispad they stopped his companion after he attempted to cross the road away from police vehicle. In his possession they found housebreaking implements and he was arrested for possession of housebreaking implements,” said Captain Crous.
“On the corner of Old Paarl Road and Kruispad they spotted another man walking with two black back bags. When he saw the police, he crossed the road in the opposite direction. When police stopped him they found a grinder and a sealed box of power plugs in his possession. The value is estimated at approximately R2 000.”
Meanwhile, fellow officers had received a complaint from neighbourhood watch members in Protea Heights about suspects fleeing the scene of a burglary in Dirkie Uys Street.
A security company later arrested one of the suspects and recovered a stolen laptop.