KEETMANSHOOP – Plans have reached an advanced stage to have an additional police station build between the Krönlein and Tseiblaagte residential areas.
The municipality has approved two erven for the planned police station in Keetmanshoop in the //Karas Region. Chief Executive Officer of the Keetmanshoop municipality Quinton Visagie said the two erven are worth N$65 849 and N$229 514 respectively and were approved at the last council meeting. According to Police Crime Investigations Coordinator in the //Karas Region Deputy Commissioner Rudolf Isaaks an additional police station in that particular spot has been long overdue. “It will be a really good thing if we can bring services closer to the people who live in those two locations who must all come in to town, which is a considerable distance in times of emergencies,” Isaaks said, adding that 90 percent of all crimes committed in Keetmanshoop take place in Krönlein and Tseiblaagte.
Isaaks also pointed out that there is a serious need for the municipality to install street lights in some of the most frequented parts of the town. “If they could put spotlights across the bridge that side of the mall and the open spot between Krönlein and Noordhoek. Those two areas are where the most murders and crimes are taking place and because of the poor lighting we find it difficult to catch the culprits. If there are lights then people would at least be able to tell us what the person was wearing, which would make it easy for the police to track down suspects,” he told New Era.
Last year, the nation was shaken to its core after it emerged that a string of murders were committed by a group of teenage schoolboys in Keetmanshoop. The schoolboys were accused of three murders which included the murder of Augustinus Joseph (46), whose body was found with a single stab wound to the chest between Tseiblaagte and Krönlein. One of their alleged murders took place at the bridge close to the governor’s office, also one of the dark spots indicated by Isaaks that require lighting. Another murder that stunned residents was the fatal beating of a 6-year-old boy by 29-year-old Desmond Vries, the murder also took place in the Tseiblaagte residential area in Keetmanshoop.
By Jemima Beukes