Open road gunfight near Wits
A RUSH hour shootout took place near Wits last Friday morning resulting in at least one wounded person.
At about 8am on August 19 a witness called into the John Robbie show on talk radio station 702 to report a shooting she had witnessed on Barry Hertzog drive.
The caller claimed she was transporting her son to varsity in Newtown when she saw “one man get out his car and shoot through another man’s car window”.
Police arrived shortly after the call and detectives had arrived by midday to conduct an investigation.
Another witness, 21-year-old Sukoluhle Ndlovu, who was standing and handing out pamphlets at a traffic light close to the incident, recalled the order of events:
“I saw two cars arrive and later two men were running away from some policemen, who were shooting at the men from the cars. They caught one man after they [the police] shot him in the foot. The man who was running away from them also had a gun. Netcare came after the man had been shot and took him to hospital.”
“I heard that they were having a misunderstanding in the road… and that they were racing.”
A metro policeman who was at the scene refused to comment on what happened, saying only that “this was not a [car] accident”. No official reports of the event have been released to the public.
Ndlovu is originally from Zimbabwe and came to South Africa because she believes there are more work opportunities here. “I came to South Africa to support my mom by helping her pay school fees”.
However, she says that seeing events like this is strange as her country doesn’t have as much violence:
“In Zimbabwe if you have a gun they will arrest you, crime is rare over there but in South Africa it is dangerous because you can carry a gun”.
A RUSH hour shootout took place near Wits last Friday morning on Barry Hertzog Drive resulting in at least one wounded person
