Boy, 10, killed in botched robbery
Pictured is the car which Captain Jacques Edas of Nyanga police station was driving when he was shot and wounded yesterday afternoon. His neighbour’s son, 10-year-old Jethro Fritz, was killed in the incident. Pictured is the car which Captain Jacques Edas of Nyanga police station was driving when he was shot and wounded yesterday afternoon. His neighbour’s son, 10-year-old Jethro Fritz, was killed in the incident.
A 10-year-old Mitchells Plain boy was killed when the vehicle he and an off-duty police officer were travelling in was shot at by assailants in an apparent attempted robbery yesterday afternoon.
Captain Jacques Edas, who is based at Nyanga police station, was travelling with his grandson, Jaymar Petersen, 3, his neighbour’s son 10-year-old Jethro Fritz and a Chinese businesswoman when they were attacked.
According to family members, Edas received a call from Lin Min of KTC Family Store, not far from the police station, requesting a lift to Makro Ottery to buy stock for the business. Unaware of the danger, the off-duty Edas took the two children with him.
As they left the premises, a gun-wielding man fired at the car, hitting Edas in the chest. More shots were fired and two bullets hit Jethro in the head and Edas was hit in the abdomen and both arms.
Min and Jaymar survived without injury. Edas’s stepson, Glenn Petersen said in an attempt to get away from the attack, Edas had driven to Nyanga police station and asked for help.
When Weekend Argus arrived at the scene, Edas’s car, a metallic green BMW, was cordoned off at the police station with shattered windows on the passenger’s side and at the back.
Petersen said the two children had been inseparable and were sitting together on the front seat when they were shot at.
The businesswoman had been sitting behind Edas.
It is believed the assailants had been targeting the businesswoman whom they expected to be sitting in the passenger’s seat and believed to be carrying money.
The motive for the shooting was not confirmed by police.
Petersen said the family was devastated by Jethro’s death as he was part of their household and spent a lot of his time with them.
The boy was a pupil at Yellowwood Primary School and had wanted to be a policeman one day.
Police spokesperson Noloyiso Rwexana said a case of murder and attempted murder was being investigated, but no one had been arrested.
According to last year’s crime statistics, the Western Cape is home to a third of the country’s police stations where the most killings have been recorded and Nyanga is the nation’s long-standing murder capital.
Seven out of the top 10 police stations where the highest numbers of murders had been recorded were also in the Western Cape.
Nyanga has recorded 281 murders in the year ending in March. This is up by just two cases from 279 murders recorded in the previous year. - Additional reporting by Shanice Naidoo