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A metro police vehicle seen during an operation in Johannesburg.
The City of Johannesburg has conceded that there are rising tensions between the city’s Metro Police Department (JMPD) officers and the South African Police Service. This after members of SAPS arrested seven JMPD officers in Bekkersdal on Gauteng’s West Rand last Friday.
Members of JMPD’s Tactical Response Unit (TRU) were conducting a legitimate vehicle recovery operation when they were arrested.
On Wednesday, seven SAPS officers were arrested for alleged extortion and kidnapping by JMPD’s TRU in Booysens.
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The city’s Public Safety MMC, Mgcini Tshwaku, believes the tensions stem from jurisdictional issues.
“We have signed a Memorandum of Understanding between ourselves, SAPS and the JMPD from national up until the municipalities that there are no borders anymore. JMPD TRU can go from Johannesburg and chase a criminal all the way to the West Rand, to Ekhuruleni, Tshwane, everywhere. So, we’ve been getting some kind of a resistance in some police stations.”
Tshwaku says, “We work very well with the generals at a provincial level, district level and also in the station commander level, but when it comes to the ground, with the warrant officers, colonels and everything, it seems they never got the memo that we are working together.”
