People dive for cover as men rob van

In Johannesburg shoppers at Fourways Crossing shopping centre were sent screaming and diving for cover on Monday when shooting erupted in the centre's parking lot as six armed men robbed a Fidelity Guards cash-in-transit van of an estimated R250 000. Bullet-riddled cars, damaged shop fronts and numerous chalk-circled shells bore graphic testimony to the heavy-calibre shootout which resulted in shrapnel penetrating a security guard's eye. The guard, Gerhardus Engelbrecht (39), also sustained a gunshot wound in the leg but not a single bystander was injured.

The robbery occurred shortly after 1pm. A group of armed men attacked a security guard carrying a case of money to an armoured Fidelity Guards van waiting in the parking lot."I reckon the guys with pistols were waiting in Pick 'n Pay, and charged at the guard as he walked out with the money," a witness said. "They grabbed him round the neck and held a gun to his head. And the poor guy just stayed calm. He slowly went down on the ground and let them take the money and his gun," the witness, who asked not to be named, said.

The robbers ran out of the Pick 'n Pay foyer area and joined their accomplices who were waiting in a white Colt bakkie. The robbers in the getaway vehicle, armed with AK-47 rifles, opened fire on the Fidelity Guards van and a Golf car, also white, that escorted the van. Shoppers and bystanders, frightened by the gunshots, panicked and scrambled for cover in shops.

Captain Lungelo Dlamini, police spokesperson for Johannesburg, said that the gang had fired mostly at the waiting guards and disarmed three of them. One of the guards in the escort car was injured and taken to Sunninghill Clinic for treatment. "As the gang fled the scene they fired random shots. Several cars in the parking lot were damaged by flying bullets," said Dlamini.

Police hastened to the scene and the suspects' bakkie was soon afterwards found abandoned about a kilometre away in Lonehill. Dlamini was unable to say how much money was stolen. The Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit is investigating. The robbery is the third shopping centre shootout in Johannesburg since April. The first occurred at Fourways Mall when armed men drove through the doors of the mall, rammed into the display window of a boutique, fired shots and escaped with clothing. In May a gang, using similar tactics, robbed a clothing store in Eastgate and fired at shopping centre guards before escaping.

Source: IoL