There are currently major gang conflicts in both Steenberg and Lavender Hill. The Hillview area in particular is currently highly volatile, with shootings taking place almost every day, mainly over drug turf and retaliation.

The City's crime prevention operation targeted contraventions for drugs, firearms, liquor and traffic offences. Metro Police, Law Enforcement, Traffic, and all Specialised Operational Units focused on identified hotspots for vehicle and foot patrols, roadblocks, and search warrants at suspected drug dens.

Overall, the operation included more than 120 boots on the ground, aided by various safety tech which Cape Town is steadily rolling out in city-wide operations, including drones, gunshot detection cameras, CCTV, dash and bodycams.

'Communities are under siege by criminals, as we see here in Lavender Hill and Steenberg where ongoing drug turf wars are being waged between rival gangs. We can never accept this situation as normal while residents live in daily fear of violent crime.

'To make Cape Town safer, we are investing in more City policing resources to help SAPS fight crime. These resource investments enabled City officers to make almost 450 illegal firearm confiscations and double drug arrests to 8 000 in the last two financial years.

'With more policing powers – particularly for criminal investigations – City officers can build prosecution-ready case dockets on gang, gun and drug crime. These powers can be devolved by extending the peace officer powers already granted to our officers by the Justice Minister in 2018,' said Mayor Hill-Lewis.

​​

'City policing operations in Lavender Hill and Steenberg yesterday resulted in close to 20 arrests for various offences.

'At one point, a passerby at the Vehicle Checkpoint (VCP) reported that a taxi containing several men was engaged in robbing people with a firearm further up the road. Acting on this information, an officer from the Highway Patrol Unit conducted an investigation, pursued the taxi, and ultimately intercepted it on Klipfontein Road.

'Subsequently, an arrest was made for illegal possession of a firearm. This incident highlights the importance of tip-offs from the public in the fight against crime.

'We are increasingly becoming a data-driven policing service, and our three enforcement agencies—Law Enforcement, Traffic, and Metro—are constantly evolving to adapt to the ever-increasing and changing crime threats,' said Alderman JP Smith.

Lavender Hill is one of the areas where the City has installed gunshot detection cameras, with 563 shots and 1165 ammunition rounds detected over the first year of this project since March 2023. This intelligence has aided City crime prevention efforts, with confiscations of 368 ammunition rounds and 14 firearms over the last year locally. Twenty-one cases of murder and attempted murder were reported linked to gunshot detections, with 10 arrests linked to shot detections and firearm recoveries.

CAPTION: Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and Alderman JP Smith, Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, joined an integrated crime prevention operation in Steenberg and Lavender Hill on Tuesday 18 March. The operation included patrols, roadblocks, and the use of safety tech such as CCTV, drones and gunshot detection.

End