The Cape Flats COVID-19 ceasefire is well and truly over.

Whilst the shooting below isn’t thought to be linked to the hit on alleged Cape Town gang boss Ernie ‘Lastig’ Solomon’s life, insiders say it is linked to a dispute between rival gangs.

On Saturday, shortly before 10AM on a street corner in Lavender Hill, a man is gunned down in public, with a nearby toddler fleeing the hail of bullets.

IOL says the slain man has been identified as “Aggies”, and SAPS spokesperson Colonel Andrè Traut says they are investigating the murder of the 21-year-old.

Here’s the footage from the incident:

#gangviolence Lavender Hill, Cape Town. CCTV FOOTAGE OF A RECENT GANG SHOOTING. @News24 @Abramjee @SAPoliceService @SAcrimefighters @crimeairnetwork @MARIUSBROODRYK @1SecondLater pic.twitter.com/slomSFjTyE

— BOSBEER.COM (@BOSBEER2006) May 30, 2020

A source close to the investigation tells IOL this was a gang hit:

“The guy who was shot is part of the Flakka Boys. They have been in constant conflict with the Junky Funky Kids gang since the breakaway in 2018.”

The source explains that after the leader of the Funkys, John Adams, was allegedly killed by members of his own gang, a splinter group called the Flakka Boys was formed.

This group was led by Jamiel “Chara” Jacobs, who vowed to kill members of the Funkys and embarked on a killing spree, but in December 2018 the Anti-Gang Unit traced him to Paarl where he was arrested.

“Chara has been in prison ever since and the biggest problem is that the Flakkas don’t have any leadership so they just run around killing,” says the source.

“This shooting comes after another leader of the Funkys was killed in Seawinds a few weeks ago.”

As Gavin Walbrugh, the Community Police Forum chairperson, points out, the video “shows how cheap life is on the Cape Flats”.

If you search ‘Lavender Hill’ on Twitter, you’ll find a number of disturbing videos of daytime gang violence erupting in public – see here, here, and here for examples.

In a separate incident from Sunday, seven-year-old Tofique Johnson was hit by a stray bullet while sleeping in his bed in Manenberg.

The Daily Maverick reports that the Johnsons live in an area controlled by the Jesters gang, who had earlier done battle with the Americans:

Tofique’s father, Gershwin, who has no links to any of the gangs, recalled how bullets slammed into the family’s Wendy house.

“My eldest daughter was pushed off her bed and luckily she wasn’t injured. My wife, Rafieka, jumped out of the bed, rushed to Tofique and pulled him out of his bed. When she handed him to me, she shouted he was shot. I lifted up his sweater but saw no blood on him.”

Johnson said he then noticed a small hole in his son’s torso.

“There was only a little bit of blood on his bed. Our house was like a madhouse. My wife ran out and neighbours rushed him to the hospital,”  said Tofique’s distraught father.

Johnson said he was baffled as to why gangsters would target his home as he did not belong to a gang and was not involved in any criminality. According to Johnson, a police officer at the scene had told him that 24 shots were fired into the Wendy house.

Take a moment to consider what it would feel like to wake up to your house being fired on, before finding your seven-year-old in bed with a gunshot wound.

Johnson is now in a stable condition, having undergone an emergency operation, but doctors were unable to remove the bullet as it had lodged in his kidney.

Some food for thought – when people talk about ‘privilege’, part of that means growing up in an area that isn’t terrorised by gangsters, in communities held hostage by people with little to no regard for human life.

[sources:iol&dailymaverick]