Violent mugging on Lions Head - Saturday 30 July 2011
Andre (TM Safety Action Group)
Good Day
The following is taken from an email sent to us earlier today:
Hi Andre
You've probably already heard that there was a violent mugging on Lions Head on Sat afternoon (30 Aug) at around 2:45pm. I was there and saw it happen from a distance.
The muggers (2 black guys in their early to mid twenties apparently, I didn't see them closeup) attacked a family (older gentleman with wife and two kids – I’m not sure if they were his kids, they could have been nephews. The kids were aged roughly 9 years and 5 years old). They focused their attack on the man who wouldn't let go of his backpack. They stabbed him (in the shoulder area and severed his earlobe) and beat him on the head. They also started throwing fist sized rocks at the children to get them to run away. The wife stood watching in shock.
The attack happened at the first paraglide jump off area on the main route up Lions. I was about 30m behind them and could see what was happening because they were silhouetted on the horizon. There must have been at least 100 people on the mountain at the time. There were about ten of us in the 30m leading up to where the attack happened and there were people coming down from the top – these guys were brazen and ballsy to attack so publicly. They also stuck around for quite a long time (while people were running to the victims’ aid) to give the poor guy a proper beating. They then ran down the paraglide ramp towards Camps Bay.
While the mugging was happening I called 10111 and
reported the incident. I was very impressed with how quickly the police
responded. From the time I ended the emergency call and started running down
the mountain it couldn't have been longer than 5 minutes max (granted there
were probably others who’d also made an emergency call but we all called within
about 5 minutes of each other). I’d only just got past where the first bench is
on the jeep track and there was a police car driving up. He collected the
injured man and his family and took them to hospital. We continued walking up
and within 5 minutes we bumped into two Parks Rangers who were running to the
attack site (they looked pretty pissed off) – shame they have a tough job
trying to police this whole area.
I stayed in the area for the rest of the afternoon and
saw several police cars driving in and out of Lions Head area, there was also a
police helicopter that spent a long time searching around Lions and in Camps Bay.
It spent a long time hovering low over several areas.
I must say I was impressed with the response. I still don’t know how we’re going to fix this though. These muggers are seriously bold and cocky – I wouldn't be surprised it they were high on drugs.
Anyway, just thought you should know.
Cheers
Christina
John Rogers
Very well written.
Photographs must abound.
Map?
Media?
Description of attackers.
John
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Andre (TM Safety Action Group)
Andrew Lewis
On the website is the following which appears to be different to the stabbing. Also about 2 hours earlier. It's an anonymous report, and the writer is suspiciously focused on the cost of the phones. Hopefully this is not someone cashing in via an insurance claim. Not being sarcastic, this is a possibility.
There also seem to be quite a number of reports in the list with nothing to do with Table Mountain, or maybe I don't know how to interpret the web page.
cheers
a
Western Cape
2011/07/30 at 13:00
Reported by anonymous
My 17 year old son and 2 friends went for a hike on Lion's Head last
Saturday afternoon and they were accosted and mugged of their three
Blackberry phones in about 2 minutes.
2 black males in their twenties demanded the phones at knife point. The
boys handed them over immediately and the criminals ran off into the
bush. Luckily the boys were unharmed.
There were other people nearby but no-one came to their aid as it all
happended so quickly and the assailants were armed. My son and his
friends make the mistake of taking expensive phones with them. The men
got away with R7000 worth of phones in less than 2 minutes - why would
they not do that again and again.
Hikers should take OLD phones with a seperate sim card so they have
something to hand over that is not valuable. Crime will only stop if it
doesn't pay.
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