The City of Cape has a new secret weapon to fight crime.
In the early hours of Sunday, Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, JP Smith, test drove the Eye in the Sky on drag racers in Mitchells Plain, resulting in the arrest of 33 drivers.
Some of the suspects were even traced to their homes.
Smith says the drone technology can be likened to a “CCTV camera with wings”, giving law enforcement 360 degree views of areas in their fight against crime.
Smith says Eye in the Sky is a manned-plane, drone-like system with recording facilities which constantly feeds information and images to officers on the ground during operations.
“So you can literally see that the guy you were looking for is hiding on the other side of a car from you, it also makes them safer because they can see the problems or an ambush in instances of conflict or risk.”
He says the plane is not visible to those on the ground and the technology is much cheaper to maintain, as the City cannot afford to put hundreds of officers on the ground without taxpayers being negatively affected.
He says the tech would be especially useful in catching cable thieves, as it is difficult for officers to monitor hundreds of kilometres of railway lines.
Smith says the technology was first tested in Mitchells Plain, as they’ve been receiving a lot of complaints from residents about illegal drag racing, and after an Uber driver was allegedly killed by an illegal drag racer in a case of reckless driving last week.
Smith went live on his Facebook page as officers pounced on drag racers on Jakes Gerwel Drive close to Mitchells Plain. In his post he said “Illegal racing ends tonight!”
He was in a Nyala van which was used to block off the road as Law Enforcement and Ghost Squad vehicles chased down offenders.
Smith said thanks to the technology, they were able record the entire operation: “Presenting the recorded driving behaviour as digital evidence to the court will be an important evolution (in the fight against crime) just as our dashboard cameras will be, which will start to be installed later this year.”
Traffic Service spokesperson, Maxine Bezuidenhout, said 230 fines were issued and 28 motorists were arrested for drunk driving, 11 for reckless and negligent driving, one was charged with possession of an imitation firearm and one with endangering the life of a minor.
Smith’s posts received mixed reactions from Facebook users, some praised his efforts, while told him to chase gangsters instead.
Alicia Ashlyn Solomons applauded Smith and said: “Well done. These people put other road users' lives at risk.”
But Ashley Kolbe asked: “So will you do the same for all the drug houses and merchants? Keep that energy man. You like the easy targets.”
Smith clapped back and posted a video of himself outside Mitchells Plain SAPS and Lentegeur SAPS and wrote: “How did we manage to arrest 33 drivers tonight, how we managed to track them to outside their houses when they think they got away?
“Because we stepping up our game. Not just against illegal racers, but think of the advantage we have now against gangsterism, cable theft and more.” (sic)