JOHANNESBURG\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A mass shooting in South Africa this week was the latest in a series of killings in some of the country\u2019s poorest areas that experts say is a symptom of organized crime gangs taking advantage of the failures and even absence of police.<\/p>\n
The shooting carried out late Tuesday by assailants in an informal settlement of shacks in Johannesburg left 12 people dead and at least 15 wounded, according to authorities. There have not been any arrests.<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s president deployed the army to the streets in several hot spots earlier this year in an attempt to combat organized crime \u2014 an unusual move seen by critics as an admission that police in Africa\u2019s most developed country were losing the battle in those areas.<\/p>\n
Alongside that, South Africa\u2019s police force has been embroiled in scandal, accused of corruption and collusion with criminal syndicates. That has resulted in more than a dozen senior officers being arrested and top officials, including the police minister and the national police commissioner, being suspended.<\/p>\n
Criminals take advantage of poor neighborhoods<\/p>\n
Recent mass shootings \u2014 including two in December that left more than 20 people dead \u2014 have occurred in poor areas away from city centers where organized crime gangs take advantage of conditions including lack of security, poor lighting and slow police responses, experts say.<\/p>\n
\u201cCriminal syndicates explicitly capitalize on this to hide weapons, execute hits, and vanish into the shadows,\u201d Jacob Mofokeng, a professor of criminology at the University of South Africa, told the Associated Press.<\/p>\n
South Africa has very high levels of violent crime, with the most recent annual statistics showing an average of more than 60 homicides a day. <\/p>\n
But the vast majority of killings occur in poor townships or informal settlements. South Africa has a long history of deep inequality \u2014 especially during the apartheid era \u2014 that is reflected in its crime today: Rich neighborhoods have much lower violent crime rates.<\/p>\n
Some gangs operate largely unchecked<\/p>\n
Illegal mining gangs have long been a problem in and around South Africa\u2019s largest city of Johannesburg, which has some of the biggest gold reserves in the world. <\/p>\n
The notorious gangs are known as zama zamas \u2014 which translates roughly as \u201chustlers\u201d or \u201cchance-takers\u201d in the Zulu language. They establish bases in impoverished and poorly policed areas and fight turf battles with other gangs or use violence to hold control in those areas.<\/p>\n
Mining gangs often include migrants from neighboring countries who are in South Africa illegally, according to authorities. <\/p>\n
That makes it hard for police to track down suspects, as they have \u201cno legal identification, no registered address, and no fingerprints or DNA profile,\u201d said Mofokeng. \u201cThey are effectively a ghost.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s government has said it loses more than $3 billion a year to illicit mining. Zama zamas have been a problem for decades and were one of the reasons South African President Cyril Ramaphosa authorized a yearlong deployment of troops on the streets to fight organized crime in specific areas across the country.<\/p>\n
Residents in the Johannesburg neighborhood hit by Tuesday\u2019s mass shooting said illegal mining gangs were known to operate there. Police said the motive for the shooting was not known, but mining gangs were a focus of the investigation.<\/p>\n
Millions of illegal firearms<\/p>\n
South Africa has strict regulations controlling the legal ownership of firearms, but there are around 2 million to 3 million illegal guns circulating in a country of 62 million people, according to independent studies and civil society organizations. <\/p>\n
Guns are by far the most common cause of homicides.<\/p>\n
Willem Els, an analyst at South Africa\u2019s Institute for Security Studies, said the flow of illegal guns and police failures led to an ideal environment for criminality.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn South Africa, we actually managed to create conditions that are very conducive for violent crime and also for organized crime syndicates to operate with impunity,\u201d he told the AP. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of unregistered firearms that are not being controlled by the police.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lack of trust in the police<\/p>\n
Analysts say police in South Africa are under-resourced, but allegations of corruption in the force have also seriously undermined its credibility.<\/p>\n
South Africa has had police corruption problems before. An allegation last year by a provincial police commander that top officers and officials were colluding with organized criminals led Ramaphosa to announce a national investigation into police corruption. That has resulted in a wave of arrests of senior police officers.<\/p>\n
Private investigator and security specialist Mike Bolhuis said police corruption has implications for on-ground policing in those areas impacted by violent crime as citizens are sometimes hesitant to give out information or help authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public doesn\u2019t trust the police, they don\u2019t trust the authorities, and they don\u2019t trust each other,\u201d Bolhuis said.<\/p>\n
Gumede writes for the Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JOHANNESBURG\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A mass shooting in South Africa this week was the latest in a series of killings in some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6577,7363,146425,4082,146424,146420,146422,48,52,51,47,50,49,7677,29386,236,146423,146421,146419,41261,13464],"class_list":["post-359815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-authority","tag-country","tag-crime-gang","tag-expert","tag-illegal-gun","tag-illegal-mining-gang","tag-johannesburg","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mass-shooting","tag-organized-crime","tag-police","tag-police-corruption-problem","tag-police-failure","tag-poor-area","tag-south-africa","tag-violent-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}