Two days ago, on Wednesday 24 January, a White family became the latest victims of a hijacking and violent house invasion. Sandy Stoltz, of Newlands in the east of Pretoria, was busy on her computer when she noticed these images on her recently installed CCTV camera system. Her brother-in-law had just arrived home, but failed to notice that he was being followed.

“After my brother parked his car, I noticed how unknown black savages slipped in through the automated gate just before it closed - I tried to focus on what I’d just seen, and thought it could not be possible” Stolz said. (the car in the back was that used by the criminals)

“When I realised a crime was in progress, I tried to gather my composure, and ran to the alarm system where I activated the panic button.”

“The criminals were quite unperturbed by the alarm siren going off. They simply continued tampering with the gate, and then yanked it off its rails.”

“At this point, all four criminals had gained access to the property. The two who sneaked in first, were holding my brother-in-law hostage, taking his cell phone, car keys and wallet. They demanded to know if there were other people in the house. According to the Brooklyn Police, this is the typical scenario for an armed robbery. Fortunately my brother said nobody else was home. In the meantime, my three children were already asleep, blissfully unaware of the danger lurking outside their bedroom windows.”

“Next, the neighbour started yelling & screaming about the wailing siren - he was unaware that a crime was in progress.”

“I then phoned one of my police friends and he immediately summoned help.”

“My brother-in-law started screaming in panic, at which point the four criminals decided to run away. At the same time, my neighbour realised what was going on and he also started yelling at the criminals. They responded by firing two shots at him while they were running away. One of the bullets almost hit my neighbour’s son while he was standing at the second storey window, watching what was going on”

“A neighbour across the street fired on the robbers, at which point they climbed bak into their car and sped away into the night”

Police and the private security firm ADT were on the scene within five minutes. Stoltz had the CCTV system installed barely a week before this incident. “I thank God that I looked at the CCTV screen at that moment, it could have turned out very differently for me and my family”.

Residents of Pretoria have in recent weeks been terrorised by armed robberies where homes are looted, and families are raped, tortured and murdered.

Source: (Afrikaans)