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Heist Season
| Date: |
13 November 2005 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Bronwyn Nielsen
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
Ruda Landman (Carte Blanche presenter): 'Shopping at your local mall used to be a pleasant way to spend your morning or a boring housekeeping chore, but lately it has become edged with danger. Armed gangs have hit on shopping malls every three days for the first six months of the year and that's in Gauteng alone. The rest of the country is not that far behind.'
Vernon Tarr (Partner Broadacres Superspar): 'My brother was confronted in the early hours of the morning and he was shot.'
Ruda: 'Vernon, what happened?'
Vernon: 'Apparently three armed guys, [that] had about half an hour before the time taken the security guards to a secluded area, held them at gun point, unclothed them and their uniforms. So he was unaware of what was going on.'
Condolences are pouring in for this family business. Pat Tarr and her three sons have run the Superspar in Broadacres for four years.
Ruda: What does your mom say?'
Vernon: 'My mom is heartbroken. She is really struggling.'
A Pretoria supermarket, another armed robbery and another store manager shot dead.
Ruda: 'What happened?'
Armed robbery victim: 'One guy came in with a rucksack. Next moment there were two guys at my back - one pointing a gun into my back, the other guy with a tyre leaver, and they asked me and said, 'Robbery, robbery! Where is the cash?' And as I was about to punch my code into the door, the guy inside - the other manager - pulls the door open and pushed me out the way. And the one guy pointed his gun at him and shot him in the chest.'
Armed robbery victim: 'The guy was lying on the floor not moving. He had a bullet shot through his heart. Gruesome...'
Armed robbery victim: 'They went back into the shop and broke some of the tills open, made the customers lie down, took their wallets, took their cell phones and they left the shop. I think there [was] maybe ten of them.'
Armed robbery victim: 'You are in such shock you don't know what is happening. It's like it is not happening, it is not happening to you.'
Ruda: 'What were you doing in the store that day?'
Maaike Christodouloou (armed robbery victim): 'I came to buy my groceries for the Saturday afternoon. So I came to actually buy some lunch. It was about ten o'clock in the morning.'
Ruda: 'Were you alone?'
Maaike: 'No I had brought my 13-year-old son with me. The two of us were together in the store.'
Ruda: 'So what happened?'
Maaike: 'Well, suddenly I saw somebody coming towards me, so the first thought was, 'Where is my child?', so I grabbed him. I then pushed him into a shelf where I thought was safe because I was worried about bullets flying. I went around the corner, I went to lie flat and suddenly I looked up and I saw this man with a gun coming down the aisle.'
Supermarkets in malls are attractive soft targets for desperate criminals. The country's suffered 146 armed robberies in shopping centres so far this year and it appears to be spiralling out of control.
We asked independent security consultant Mike Visagie what the pattern was.
Mike Visagie (Security Consultant): 'If you look at our malls being hit, it is being done organised. It is organised, it is professional, it is quick, with maximum force.'
Ruda: 'What is their modus operandi?'
Mike: 'To look at security, to look at the CCTV capability, to look at escape routes. To look at which, and when, is the most vulnerable times to come in and do something. All of these places are cash revenue; this is a goldmine we are sitting on for a criminal. When you do your reconnaissance, this is a playground.'
And they do their homework, because they know exactly what they are doing.
Armed robbery victim: 'The customers lie in the back of the shop first and then they move to the front.'
Ruda: 'South Africans are used to seeing private security guards everywhere - at private homes, at boomed off roads, at businesses and in shopping malls. But are they really able to protect us?'
Mike: 'People are dying here; innocent bystanders, security officers, owners of businesses. We rely on 'security guard X' standing there to protect us
But Reinette Atkinson, GM Hyde Park, says security guards aren't there to confront criminals
Reinette Atkinson (GM, Hyde Park Shopping Centre): 'Detecting and detouring is their core job in a shopping centre. It is important for them not to confront any situation; for that, we have the police. Should a crime happen in the centre, he is there to direct all the shoppers and also open the way up. We need the criminals to get out of the centre as soon as possible and into the hands of the police.'
Commissioner Bushy Engelbrecht has had a lot to say about these armed robberies.
Talk Radio 702 Eyewitness News:
'This month alone there have been at least 15 armed robberies, most of them at shopping centres and retail outlets across Gauteng. Engelbrecht admits that security measures at some shopping centres [leaves] much to be desired.'
Commissioner Bushy Engelbrecht: 'We also evaluate their security in conjunction with their own security companies working for them. Some of these shops do not have adequate security. The equipment they use is not of a good standard that they are using for surveillance.'
But we weren't allowed to speak to him. Instead we had to talk to national police spokesperson Superintendent Ronnie Naidoo.
Ruda: 'What is the police's response? How are you supporting these businesses?'
Ronnie Naidoo (National Spokesperson SAPS): 'The safety of a shopping centre is on the onus of the owner to do that. We have consultant workshops with the store owners; we have members now visiting - especially during peek periods - which we have identified is where attacks are taking place; frequent visits to the supermarkets, which is also curbing it.'
Ruda: 'Shouldn't there be a more visible police presence at these soft targets?'
Ronnie: 'There should be. I do admit there should be. But for now it is still reactive. The taskforce which is now permanently on standby for an incident that do happen, we don't go to a scene immediately we go to escape routes now.'
Ruda: 'What should a mall owner be looking for when hiring a security company?'
Ronnie: 'Okay you have got your recognised companies that perform good services. They are also linked with remote alarm systems, your CCTV is linked and they are trained.'
Mike: 'Make sure when you do your investigating around the company itself that they do have all these operational, logistical and training capabilities to support it.'
Ruda: 'How do you strike a balance between accessibility and safety? You don't want airport security at the entrance to your grocery store, but neither do you want a gun to your head.'
Fidelity's Hannes Venter says mall management decide whether they want their guards to be armed.
Hannes Venter (Fidelity): 'There is a balance in a shopping centre between defending and causing an all out war... a shooting or a gun fight.'
Vernon: 'It is something we are rolling in our minds - should we, shouldn't we? We should be, we shouldn't be, and we shouldn't be carrying the firearms.'
The Consumer Goods Council of South Africa's Michael Broughton is also very concerned
Michael Broughton (Consumer Goods Council of South Africa): 'When the gangs arrive they arrive en masse, so there [is] a large number of them. They have planned it or they have sussed out the lay of the land if you like, and they know exactly where they want to go.'
The gangs have a leader called 'the money man'; a 'confidant' who helps the leader; 'trigger men' who are chosen on a job-by-job basis; 'spotters' who act as lookouts and provide added support for trigger men; and finally 'drivers' who steal or hijack the car... the get-away car. But no matter what their roles, these are desperate men.
Michael: 'They are ready to shoot. That is why they have guns.'
Ronnie: 'They want to shoot. Life for them is nothing.'
Mike: 'Those guys might have been abusing substances, alcohol or something to get them into this position where they are thinking, 'Now I can do this!' '
30% of the armed robberies take place during the day when cash is dropped off or collected. Some mall owners have invested in special collection points in basements away from the public so security vans can make their collections at night. This is a costly exercise.'
Hannes: 'It does cost money. It is a huge investment, putting extra infrastructure in your shopping mall. Your chance is less than one percent that you get robbed. And you [spending] more money on those odds is just not economically the right decision for a retailer.'
Most armed robberies take place early morning and late afternoon. And they are most likely to happen on a Sunday.
Mike: 'Don't be a hero. The most important thing is to stay calm.'
Michael: 'If you have a gun, please don't take it out and don't try and do something silly with it; conceal it, hide it, don't let them see it. Just listen to what they say. If they say lie down, lie down; if they want your purse, give them your purse. Your life is not worth anything that you have got in your purse.'
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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