City of Cape Town assisted the investigation run by South African Police Service (SAPS) into alleged explosive device at Jewish Community Centre on Friday, Dec 06, 2024.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said on Dec 06 that his office received notification from the South African Police Service (SAPS) regarding a report that an alleged explosive device had been thrown over the front wall of the Jewish Community Centre in Hatfield Street, Cape Town.
Lewis added to his statement that the Cape Town Metro Police has assisted SAPS in analysing the CCTV footage to get to the bottom of the incident, with the support of City of Cape Town for the investigation that is being coordinated by the Safety & Security Information Management Services (SSIMS).
Since then, SAPS has not officially confirmed the nature of the device as they have handed the file over to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) and indicated that they view the matter with seriousness.
According Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, the South African Police Service (SAPS) has done the investigation to confirm that this was an attempted attack on the Jewish Community Centre. He added, “I know I would speak for all Capetonians in condemning such an attempt in the strongest possible terms.”
Notably, Cape Town is a city of peace-loving people, where differences of faith and opinion are expressed loudly and fully yet always peacefully.
The City of Cape Town has a long and proud history of being a safe city for people of all religions to live and express their faith and traditions. “Let us all commit ourselves to protect and defend the best of the history,” noted Hill-Lewis.
Member of the Mayoral Committee for Safety and Security – Alderman JP Smith said that they are making investments in various safety technologies such as CCTV, Automatic Number Plate Recognition, gunfire detection and eye-in-the-sky aerial surveillance.
This will help City of Cape Town to recover hundreds of firearms through gunfire detection. Utilising this they will be able to find lost or injured people on the mountain or along rivers and will also be able to assist SAPS in investigations, also when others are given the opportunity.