\n<\/p>\n
Cape Town \u2013 The family of a teenager shot dead in a hail of bullets by unknown gunmen is angry with the lack of police and government support for local communities battling gang violence.<\/p>\n
Tamika Solomons, 18, was shot and killed by unknown men while walking to a nearby shop in Ottery on Monday just after 8pm.<\/p>\n
Police have opened an investigation but have yet to make any arrests.<\/p>\n
Solomons\u2019s mother, Jillian Solomons, said: \u201cI\u2019m so heartbroken. My daughter was a sweet soul. Everyone here loved her. I don\u2019t understand why she was murdered. They shot her three times. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t even say it was stray bullets because there was no one else in the road but her. Couldn\u2019t they see she was a girl, not their enemy? She was my child, and they took her from me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tamika, a Grade 11 pupil at Fairmount High School spent the day at home making cupcakes for her younger brother\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n \u201cShe wanted to be a social worker because she loved children. There\u2019s no understanding of something like this. I\u2019m completely broken and tired of the cycle of violence and of living in this community. The police don\u2019t care. Neither does our government, or they would have done something to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n Tamika\u2019s father, Izack de Klerk, who was the last person to speak to his daughter on their way to the hospital, said five minutes after she left to go to the shop he heard seven gunshots.<\/p>\n \u201cI ran to the scene and saw her lying curled up. I immediately picked her up, and we got into a car to go to the clinic. I kept talking to her because I didn\u2019t want her to lose consciousness, but just as we got to the hospital gates she closed her eyes. <\/p>\n \u201cShe was my good baby girl, Tamika, and she died in my arms. Her last words to me were just Pa, Pa.\u201d<\/p>\n Frustrated with the ongoing gang violence and lack of urgency from police and law enforcement, community leaders, activists and residents plan to stage a demonstration at the Grassy Park police station today to call for the removal of the station commander.<\/p>\n Disgruntled residents said: \u201cThe police don\u2019t do anything to protect us. One van patrols the area, and it\u2019s never available when there is an emergency. At this stage, we know they are in the pockets of gangsters because no one is ever arrested for the murders of innocent people here.<\/p>\n \u201cOur people are being killed every other day. We want the police officers stationed here to go, and there should be a rotational system so officers don\u2019t stay here for long. That\u2019s how they get familiar with gangsters, who seemingly never kill each other but innocent people only.\u201d<\/p>\n Tamika\u2019s neighbour, Ayesha Dennis, said at the same time the teen was shot, several gunshots reverberated off the windows and walls of her home.<\/p>\n \u201cWe immediately scurried away from the windows and walls, and flew to the ground and just lay there. That\u2019s life here for us.<\/p>\n \u201cI can tell you how my son was killed here across the street from our home, point-blank in his head. The police never once came to me, now this. Something needs to change or, as parents, we are going to keep mourning our children.\u201d<\/p>\n [email protected]<\/p>\n Cape Argus<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" – Advertisement – Cape Town \u2013 The family of a teenager shot dead in a hail of bullets by unknown gunmen is angry with the lack of police and government support for local communities battling gang violence. Tamika Solomons, 18, was shot and killed by unknown men while walking to a nearby shop in Ottery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1062310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3894],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1062309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/7380a555-3dbf-54ca-b2d5-024da97928e9.jpg\")
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