Africa-Press – South-Africa. A police officer was gunned down and three others, including a security guard, were wounded during a robbery at a filling station in Tembisa, Johannesburg.
National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said the officers responded to a robbery in progress at a filling station in Andrew Mapheto Drive in the early hours of Thursday.
She added a gang of about 15 armed men had robbed the store of an undisclosed amount of money and cigarettes.
“As the group was about to leave, they noticed a group of police officers entering the filling station. They immediately opened fire on three members attached to the Tembisa South police station and a security guard.
“Three officers and a security guard sustained multiple gunshot wounds and were also disarmed off their service pistols,” Mathe said.
They were rushed to hospital, but one officer was declared dead, she added.
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The men fled the scene in a Toyota Quantum and Toyota Corolla Prestige.
National police commissioner General Fannie Masemola has directed provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Elias Mawela to mobilise maximum resources to track down the culprits.
In a separate incident in Vereeniging on Wednesday morning, three officers died after their vehicle was hit by a truck.
Mathe said the officers were conducting crime prevention patrols around 04:45 when a truck allegedly failed to stop at a four-way crossing.
The three officers were declared dead on the scene.
The driver of the truck has since been arrested.
A case of culpable homicide and reckless and negligent driving is being investigated.
They dead police officers were identified as:
In the 2021/22 financial year, 33 officers lost their lives in the line of duty.
Masemola sent his condolences to the three police officers’ families, friends, and colleagues.
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