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20111229

Durbanville crime facts: cloudy because of censorship

Durbanville businessman Hein Vercuiel thinks of emigrating from the predominantly “white’ Western Cape suburb of Durbanville because of the crime-wave targetting his shop; he told the Afrikaans newspaper ‘Die Burger’ -  link

2011-12-28  After two breakins, an armed attack and an assault  within 3 months, Durbanville businessman Hein Vercuiel is so desperate that he is considering emigrating. The owner of the E-piphany Fine Arts Gallery uses a unique approach: he sells art-works primarily by young artists together with electronic equipment.

Mr Vercuiel formerly owned the chain-shops Audio-Vision. He said the first big breakin was three months ago, and they got away with R300,000 's worth of equipment. A month ago he was attacked and assaulted by four black men while he was changing his combi's flat tyre: and they stole R100,000's worth of goods."And then I received threats because it was  reported in the newspapers.'  On December 16 his shop was hit again and about R279,000's worth of goods were looted - and massive damage was caused during both breakins.They stole computers, iPads, plasma-TVs, DVD-masjiene. The gang fled in a white VW Citi Golf . He said the business complex has unarmed security guards."I just don't know if it is still worthwhile to run a business. Such things make you consider emigrating.'He said each time the gang used the identical modus operandi: they break the glass-door by throwing a heavy cement-block through it. It  appears the same gang is targetting him each time because they were filmed on closed-circuit TV. Local SAPS spokesman w/o November Filander said the 'cases were reported but nobody was arrested'.

Durbanville Tygerberg crime map Farmitracker targetting whites Dec2009 to Dec 2011   What is going on in predominantly ‘white’ DurbanvilleMAP ABOVE: The independent criminology-website farmitracker.com shows that there have been four strange, possibly race-related incidents recorded in Durbanville over the past two years. The suburb ‘s 27,000+ residents are 82.9% ethno-Europeans: i.e. Afrikaners and English-speaking South Africans. The region ‘s language is predominantly Afrikaans. There was an unexplained strangling-death of an elderly Afrikaner woman in an old-age home where nothing was robbed; and police-raids which targetted Afrikaners: one high-publicity police raid on an ‘arms-cache’ on a Durbanville farm which turned out to be plastic display-guns belonging to a young hobbyist; and an assault by Durbanville police-officers on the husband of a local opposition politician. The police statistics do not provide details of the race of the perpetrators nor of the victims; and neither do the SAPS provide information on whether firearms were used in such crimes. Durbanville ‘s municipal area includes surrounding farms but no seperate statistics are maintained on farm-murders.

DURBANVILLE Tygerberg SAPS stats 2003 to April2011

 http://www.saps.gov.za/statistics/reports/crimestats/2011/provinces/w_cape/pdf/durbanville.pdf

 SAPS CRIME STATS FOR Durbanville – since April 2003 to April 2011, there were 77 murders and 107 culpible homicides; 6,239 burglaries at homes and 91 armed robberies targetting families at Durbanville homes (and since the area includes surrounding wine- and dairy farms, these also include ‘farm attacks’);  and 754 crime-attacks against business-premises by gangs;  for a town  housing 27,000 mostly ‘ ethno-European ’ residents; that is a very high crime-rate when compared to the Western countries their forefathers originated from. It’s also notable that there are very few carjackings or kidnappings – which are predominant crimes in Gauteng and KZN provinces.

http://www.saps.gov.za/statistics/reports/crimestats/2011/provinces/w_cape/pdf/durbanville.pdf

The local SAPS’s registration of crimes from April 2003 to April 2011 above, shows that in the 2010/1 bookyear, there were 125 criminal incidents targetting businesses, 241 'commercial crimes'; and a whopping 893 breakins of family-homes – of which 24 were logged as ‘robberies’ and the rest as ‘burglaries’. It can thus be concluded that individually, the families are the most at risk in Durbanville from criminal gangs. Due to the lack of any specific details from the SA police crime reports, for instance the use of firearms, or the race of the victims and perpetrators – all the exact facts remain difficult to ascertain. In other words: local people do not know whether they live in a ‘ safer ‘ or an ‘unsafer’ area of South Africa. SAPS stats for Durbanville:

Farmitracker: race-related incidents using excessive violence and hatespeech, Durbanville:  (all three incidents targetted Afrikaners):

Cornelia Killian 84, frail oldage home resident Huis Aristea Queen Street Durbanville Sshe was strangled and nothing was robbed:  Mrs Cornelia Kilian, 84, strangled to death, retirement home Huis Aristea, Queen Street, Durbanville Saturday Nov 20 2010 – Kobus Pretorius of Die Burger reported incident Nov 24 2010.
Durbanville 'arms-cache' - display room of PLASTIC TOY GUNS confiscated by SAPS raid...SABC2 news headlined the find of an arms-cache on a Durbanville farm which much fanfare: but then failed to notice that the police had ‘recovered’ plastic toy guns owned by a young hobbyist. The Durbanville police uses excessive manpower to raid a socalled “arms-cache” especially when they found only plastic display items:  the 'suspect' had a hobby-room to display PLASTIC toy guns of AK47s, banners, flags, shop dummy in uniform, PLASTIC TOY replicas of mortars: Sun Jan 16 2011

Black police brutality: with racist insults hurled at member of parliament's husbanddon’t think you are special because you are white…’

July 14 2010: Police have attacked MP Denise Robertson (DA) ’s husband Stewart, 62, in Durbanville, Cape Town, in yet another attack of police brutality and corruption. Stewart Robinson, 62, an IT_project manager of the city of Cape Town, had to get his eye-banks stitched up after he was racially abused by black cops and brutally assaulted without any explanations: with the cops shouting at him that he ‘shouldn’t think he was special just because he’s white’. Formal charges were placed at the Durbanville police station. Die Burger newspaper established from the motor-vehicle registration recorded by the victim that it formed part of the Central Cape Town SAPS ‘ crime-prevention unit. Mrs Robinson said her husband was forced off the road Monday 13:00 on Racecourse Road Durbanville by the police vehicle, a Mercedes-Benz-Vito-microbus. He was unable to pull over safely there and continued on to a Total fuel-station. The cops jumped from the vehicle there, and dragged him from his vehicle, and beat him up – breaking his glasses in the process. Eyewitness Johan Smit rushed to help Robinson and demanded to know who they were: and the cops snarled at him and at Robinson: ‘do not think you are special just because you are white’. The cops then climbed back inside the vehicle and drove off.  http://www.nuus24.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Polisie-slaan-LP-se-man-20100714- Wed Jul 14 2010

Durbanville population: Black African 688 2.32%; Coloured 2 730 9.21% Indian/Asian 160 0.54% White 26 047 87.92%

history of Durbanville:

Durbanville is a rural residential suburb on the northern outskirts of the Cape Town metropolis and is surrounded by farms producing wine and wheat.The majority of the more than 27,000 residents speak Afrikaans as their first language. Among its famous residents are Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Thawte and second self-funded space touristAmore Bekker, radio personality, author, MC and columnist; Jody Williams, winner of Idols season 4.

History: it used to be called Pampoenkraal…

Durbanville was founded in the early 19th century around a fresh water spring and was primarily a watering station for travellers betweenCape Town and the interior. Durbanville was originally known as Pampoenkraal (from the Afrikaans words pampoen meaning pumpkin, andkraal meaning corral - an enclosure for livestock).

In 1825 a group of local Afrikaner farmers requested permission from Lord Charles Somerset (governor of the Cape Colony at that time) to build their own church. The Dutch Reformed Church was inaugurated on 6 August 1826. A small village grew between the church and the outspan (the overnight stop for ox-wagons). During 1836 the anti-Boer-Republican Afrikaners who lived in Pampoenkraal at that time, petitioned the British Colonial Governor of the Cape Colony, Sir Benjamin d'Urban, for permission to rename the village D'Urban in his honour. The new name persisted until 1886 when it was renamed to Durbanville in order to avoid confusion with Durban - the port city in the east of South Africa which used to be called Port Natal.

Durbanville already had its own court house, jail and magistrate from the 1870s and became a Magisterial District of Bellville. The court house complex still exists in altered form within the Rust-en-Vrede complex, originally erected in 1850. A village management board was established in 1897 and a municipality in 1901. The first mayor elected was John King.  The village grew rapidly after the turn of 19th century and a local wagon industry developed. The King Brothers Wagon Works' used to be South Africa's biggest wagon works. At the turn of the century, it employed more than 200 men, which just about accounted for the entire village.

Northern Suburbs (Tygerberg) - Bellville · Bothasig · Brackenfell · Brooklyn · Durbanville · Edgemead · Elsie's River · Facreton · Goodwood · Kensington · Kuils River · Maitland · Monte Vista · Panorama · Parow · Thornton

Durbanville Police:  (Phone: 021-9703800 Fax: 021-9764472)