A young Kraaifontein man was shot in the back in a seemingly random act of violence.
The Payne family, of Buh Rein Estate, are reeling after brothers Keanan, 26, and Kyle, 22, were shot at while driving. Kyle was shot in the back and has a bullet lodged in his kidney. Keanan said doctors had been unable to remove the bullet.
He said he did not know who had shot at them or why.
“I don’t understand it,” Keanan said.
The bizarre incident unfolded on Wednesday May 3 while Keanan was on his way to fetch his daughter from her day mother in Zonnendal.
It was a new carer and Keanan was still getting used to the route to her house. Kyle was with him in the car.
Keanan said he had turned into Mostert Street and had been driving slowly so as to not miss any landmarks, when a red Golf Polo appeared behind him, very close to his bumper.
“I signalled to him to pass me,” Keanan said.
The motorist did, but instead of carrying on, he stopped directly in front of the Payne brothers and blocked their way.
“The passenger got out. He pointed a gun at me and shouted, ‘Klim uit die kar! Klim uit die kar! Klim uit die kar!’” Keanan said.
Keanan said he remembered few other details about the men -except that they didn’t look older than 30 – or their car because, in his state of shock, he had been focused only on the gun.
However, when he had seen the driver also climbing out the car his instincts had told him to “drive”.
As he had pulled away the Golf passenger had started shooting, he said.
“Two shots were fired,” Keanan said.
“The first went through the windscreen, hit the dashboard and just missed my brother’s head,” he said.
“The second bullet came through the passenger side door and the seat and hit my brother in the kidney,” Keanan said.
But their ordeal was far from over. The occupants of the red Golf followed them.
“They followed us down and around Viking Street and back into Mostert Street,” Keanan said.
“I lost them in one of the side roads and then I took my brother to the hospital and phoned the police,” he said.
“I hope they are caught because I’d really like to know why,” Keanan said. “I don’t know why they pulled us over. What did they want?”
Bianca Coetzee of Uitzicht, witnessed the shooting from the opposite side of the road. She had her children with her in the car at the time.
“It all seemed very unreal. I can’t believe that someone would just do something like that,” she said.
“I just saw the guys in the red Golf, overtake the younger guys in the white car,” Ms Coetzee said.
“The red Golf stopped in front the white car, blocking their way. The guy got out and started shouting at them.”
Ms Coetzee continued driving and witnessed the rest of what happened through her rear-view mirror.
Keanan and Kyle had tried to drive away, she said, and as they had done so, the man had pulled out a gun and started shooting at them.
“The guy then got in the car again and followed them,” she said.
“My children were really, really scared,” she said. “I told them it’s not real.”
Provincial police spokesperson Captain FC van Wyk said that a case of attempted murder had been opened for investigation.
“No arrest has been made as yet,” he said.
