Hello everybody on HIVE! My name is Jasper, and I am writing to you from Cape Town in South Africa.
Today I am going to write about a serious topic:
I was watching this video by VICE on Youtube:
The video explains that corrupt police are at least partly responsible for gangsters and other criminals having access to illegal firearms in South Africa and Brazil.
For those of you who don’t know, South Africa has a terrible violent crime rate that is rivalled only by places like Brazil and Mexico.
The video made me remember David Wolfromm:
Photo source: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/tanyaanddavidwolfromm
I used to hate my job. In late 2016 I couldn’t take the stress of it anymore, as well as how the work seemed to hold no meaning for me, and I quit without having secured a new job to move onto, which is quite desperate behaviour by my risk-adverse standards… I was anxious and depressed.
In February 2017, a good man called David Wolfromm took a chance on me and hired me to join their South African wing of a Renewable Energy Development Company. He changed my life considerably for the better. I had worked I believed in! I slowly healed. Although he was my boss, we became good friends and surfed together. If anything, he wanted me to stress less and often teased me for starting work too early. He was a great man.
On 8 May 2019, David Wolfromm was getting out of the surf… and while at his car getting ready to go home, he was hijacked, shot and put into the back of his own car. According to a key witness, Jocelyn Claasen, the two hijackers then picked up her and another friend to join them in the car, and carried on driving. When Jocelyn and her friend noticed that there was a body in the car, they tried to get out. In the chaos, the car collided with another car. Eventually, the culprits decided to abandon the car, but not before setting it on fire first. David Wolfromm was found dead and burnt, and I (and everyone who loved him) obviously hope that he died rapidly from the gunshots, and wasn’t burnt alive, by the time the car was set on fire… (https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/i-still-have-nightmares-says-woman-who-witnessed-scarborough-surfers-murder-28069369)
David was well-loved, and many people attended his official memorial, as well as surfer-style paddle out ceremonies followed by songs on the beach like this...
I’ve been told that it was private security rather than police who tracked down the two suspects mentioned in the article above. I’ve been told that the suspects were found with an illegal firearm in the correct calibre, David’s clothes, and David’s car keys.
I have also been told that the two suspects had previously been arrested for a different hijacking a month earlier and were out on bail for this crime at the time! Either they didn’t have this illegal firearm taken off them back then, or it was simple enough for them to acquire another illegal firearm within month. I assume South Africa’s prisons are too full to hold people for hijacking if they haven’t actually killed anybody (YET!!).
Apparently this wasn’t good enough for the Police Detectives who planned on using Jocelyn’s testimony as the main evidence in their case. When she was suspiciously murdered herself, days before she was due to give birth, their case fell apart and the suspects were released! (https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/ocean-view-woman-shot-dead-days-before-she-was-due-to-give-birth-42006674)
So, I now sit with that anger. We know the names of the culprits and they walked free… There is some suspicion that the State Detective may have been corrupt as well…
South Africa has quite strict gun laws. I have actually been through the lengthy process of acquiring a legal firearm myself, and it took me over a year!
•What is the point of strict gun laws, if the criminals can easily get access to illegal firearms instead, from the police or even reportedly the army bases? There is so much corruption in this country!
•Now, if I ever want to get rid of my own firearm, I must sell it to a friend I trust who would then have to go through a similar lengthy licencing procedure. Unfortunately, I cannot trust that the Police will destroy it like they are supposed to if I hand it in. They could sell it to a gangster, or rent it out to a hitman instead!
So, if you can stomach it, please watch the video I mentioned:
It details how one cop in South Africa was found guilty of selling 2000 guns to gangsters in Cape Town! It also details how one of the main cops that was trying to expose the corruption, was murdered in a hit. It also exposes the situation in Brazil. I am sure there are many other countries where this kind of thing happens, and the people who are supposed to be looking after society are actually assisting the criminals instead...
THE END