More LEAP officers to be deployed to violence-hit Cape Town communities
This includes the communities of Khayelitsha, Phillipi East, Nyanga, Gugulethu, Delft and Mitchells Plain.
FILE: City of Cape Town LEAP officers. Picture: @CityofCT/X
CAPE TOWN - Several Cape Town communities, notorious for violent crime levels, will see more LEAP officers' boots on the ground.
This includes the communities of Khayelitsha, Phillipi East, Nyanga, Gugulethu, Delft and Mitchells Plain.
Since 2020, the Western Cape government and the City of Cape Town have trained, equipped, staffed, managed and deployed more than 1,000 Law Enforcement Action Plan (LEAP) officers in Cape Town.
The initiative had been introduced as a force multiplier to the SAPS.
The Western Cape Department of Police Oversight and Community Safety and the City of Cape Town have now initiated, what they're calling, a double-up trial redeployment for LEAP to combat the evolving organised crime and extortion syndicates targeting communities.
"The devastating reality is that SAPS in the Western Cape is under-staffed and under-funded. In March 2024, we had 16,424 SAPS officers deployed to our province with 1,757 vacancies, but actually what we need is to dramatically increase SAPS policing numbers by the thousands to make a real difference on our streets and in our communities," said Western Cape Police Oversight and Community Safety MEC, Anroux Marais.