Speaker, yesterday there was a report in The Star newspaper about three Johannesburg undercover police officers who were arrested by their Hillbrow counterparts for conducting a drug bust in Hillbrow, allegedly without permission.
The ACDP is shocked by such appalling action by the Hillbrow police officers, who allegedly protected drug dealers who were about to be arrested by the three undercover police officers from Johannesburg. The Hillbrow officers who arrested their counterparts were reported to have said that the undercover officers had jumped their territorial boundary, and that the Hillbrow officers were always arrested in the Johannesburg central area.
The ACDP urges the Minister of Police to call for an investigation into what appears to be a territorial war between the Johannesburg police and the Hillbrow police, who should be working together to fight crime, and also to charge the Hillbrow police officers for arresting their Johannesburg counterparts for conducting a drug bust in Hillbrow and not the drug dealers.
The ACDP also wants to see closer scrutiny of what is really happening at the Hillbrow police station. Hotel owners in the area claim that whenever police raids are planned, drug dealers disappear from the streets two hours before the raids take place because they are tipped off by some officers from that station.
We further urge the Minister to send outside police units to Hillbrow to deal with the drug problem and corruption in the Hillbrow area. Thank you.