Counting the Dead Is Not a Safety Plan

GOOD Speech by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament during today’s interpellation on Mass Shootings:

I am going to paint you a story: Two men walk into a barbershop. There are a few clients in chairs getting their hair cut, most are children. It’s a seemingly normal day, until the men open fire in the barbershop, killing four people, including three children.

All the children are under the age of thirteen, the youngest aged five. All there to assumedly get their hair cut. Now this is not some fictional story, this happened.

Last year, in June, when 2 armed gunmen walked into the Mzwa barber shop on Gqrwarha Street, in Khayelitsha.

A mass shooting is defined as an incident in which three or more people are shot in a single episode of violence, excluding the shooter.  These are not ordinary homicides. They are sudden eruptions of high-intensity, indiscriminate gunfire, often in public spaces, sometimes in homes, designed to send a message of fear, control, and dominance.  Unlike targeted assassinations, mass shootings create widespread terror because anyone, anywhere, could be next.

I appreciate the Minister’s outline of interventions and how these incidents are terrible, but there is also an undeniable escalation in both the frequency and lethality of mass shootings this year compared to 2024. The Western Cape has already seen more gang-related mass shootings between May and July this year than in the same period last year.  The death toll from mass shootings has increased, rising from about 15 deaths linked to mass shootings during that time period in 2024, to at least 24 people killed in eight mass shootings in July alone for 2025

These are not isolated tragedies, they represent a pattern of calculated, lethal attacks that have terrorized entire communities. And these communities have names, and they are not Bishop’s Court or Sea Point, they are Bishop Lavis and Khayelitsha.  The same names identified in the multi-billion-rand Safety Plan. The Safety Plan with the goal of reducing murder by 50% in 10 years. And reducing violence overall.

I do not stand here to criticise purely for criticism’s sake. I stand here because people are dying.

If the Safety Plan were working, even remotely working, we would see significantly less murders, less mass shootings, and surely less headlines like these:

“‘End the bloodshed’: Cape Town gun crisis leaves 24 dead in eight mass shootings in July”

“‘I couldn’t move or scream’: Survivor recalls Gugulethu mass shooting that left 7 dead”

And we all here understand and appreciate the complex nature of crime and especially gang violence, but what we do not understand is why billions of taxpayer money is still being spent on a plan that is clearly not working.

In the very first year of the Western Cape Safety Plan, there were 3 975 murders. Last financial year, there were 4 467. That’s not progress, that’s an increase of 12.38%.

Now, the government will say: But population growth.

Well, even when you account for that, the per capita murder rate has risen, from 58.2 per 100 000 people in the first year, to 60.1 today. That is an increase. And yet we are told to celebrate a drop of just 77 murders from last year, a measly 1.77% decrease. That’s not a turning point, it’s statistical noise. It is statistically insignificant.

It’s the kind of fluctuation you might see in any given year, with or without this multi-billion-rand safety plan.

But statistics aside. I stand here today, imploring you to do better, to be better, for the people who are dying, en masse.

The newly appointed Commander of the Western Cape’s Anti- Gang Unit Brigadier Wienand himself said that suppression is not the answer.  The approach to gang violence is not just more boots on the ground, its more systemic than that.

These are not just numbers on a page; these are mothers, fathers, children, friends, lives cut short before their time. Each death leaves behind families shattered by grief and communities scarred by fear. We owe it to them, to their memories, and to those still at risk to demand accountability and real change. It is time to rethink strategies, to invest in real and actual prevention, education, and community upliftment alongside enforcement.

The current status quo is a failure. The bloodshed continues, and with it, the urgent call for us all to act with courage, compassion, and conviction.

GOOD Community Development: The party is involved in various community development projects.

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