GOOD Statement by Jonathan Cupido, GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor:
The mass shooting in Marikana, Philippi East, in the early hours of Saturday, 17 January 2026, which claimed the lives of seven people and left three others injured, is a brutal reminder that crime statistics are failing to reflect the reality on the ground.
According to SAPS, the attack is believed to be linked to extortion. While police have condemned the violence and opened an investigation, the truth is this: this shooting did not come out of nowhere.
For months, community crime updates groups have been reporting persistent gunfire, shootings, and intimidation in affected areas.
These groups exist to warn residents in real time to stay out of danger, not to inflate figures or create panic. They cover only parts of Cape Town, but where they operate, the pattern is clear that gunfire is routine, not exceptional.
Yet this reality is largely absent from SAPS quarterly crime statistics, which only record firearm violence once someone is killed or seriously injured. “Shots fired”, intimidation gunfire, and shooting-in-progress incidents are simply not counted.
This matters because resources follow statistics.
When gunfire is invisible in the data:
- Areas appear safer than they are,
- Fewer resources are deployed,
- Prevention is deprioritised,
- Intervention arrives only after lives are lost.
In the same city where a 15-year-old was recently shot and killed, and where children as young as 8 are being arrested for stone-throwing, we are misallocating resources because we are measuring the wrong things.
More policing alone has not stopped the shooting. The post-reporting data show that gunfire continues and, in many areas, increases despite deployments and operations.
The GOOD Party has consistently called for a violence-prevention approach, aligned to our manifesto and supported by international evidence. In Glasgow, gang violence was reduced not through militarisation, but by treating violence as a social and public-health issue, backed by education, mental-health support, and real alternatives for young people.
Until SAPS crime statistics include unlawful firearm discharge and reflect what communities experience, resources will continue to be misdirected, and tragedies like Marikana will repeat themselves.
Crime is not experienced as a spreadsheet.
It is experienced as gunfire outside your home.
GOOD Social Cohesion: GOOD promotes social cohesion and unity among diverse communities.
Killer Grenade
Which unit describes the intensity of light in South Africa? Nelson Candela
Vixen
Van, startled, spins around and answers the rep, \”It\’s my donkey\’s ears. When they walk under the highway their ears rub along the roof and hurt them. I\’m making it taller so that doesn\’t happen\”.
The rep looking confused, because it\’s a dirt track that runs under the bridge, asks him, \”Why don\’t you grade or dig some of the soil to lower the surface so they can pass through without their ears touching?\”
Van – no the one looking confused then angry answers, \”No man, it\’s their ears that are too long, not their legs!\”