How a traffic officer chased down a suspect to return a stolen cellphone
Winston Sims and the Spur manager.
Image: Supplied
A quick-thinking traffic officer is now a local hero in Westridge, Mitchells Plain, after he chased down a suspect in the early hours of Thursday to recover a stolen cellphone.
A traffic speed enforcer for the last 10 years, Sims, who was a metro police officer before then, knows when to go above and beyond the call of duty and when to put pedal to the metal.
Our hero explains: “I was on my way to Jakes Gerwel as I operate at that section on the road every day, working with a speed camera. I was there around 7am on Thursday and then as I came around the bend, there on Westridge Gardens I saw this guy running across.
“You can see when someone runs that they are running away from something and this guy was struggling to get over the road there by the Stephen Reagan sports field.”
Sims said at that point he knew that something was wrong. He then saw a civilian walking on the opposite side, and to his surprise, it happened to be the owner of a stolen cellphone.
He adds: “I then made a U-turn at the fire station and I asked the guy, ‘Listen, what’s happening, why is the guy running?’ and he told me that he had just got robbed.”
The officer said at that point he did not hesitate and set off to catch the thief, who was in the field at the time.
Sims decided to circle around the field in his vehicle, hoping that the suspect would come out.
He said: “I used the blue light on my vehicle, and I drove three times around the premises to see if he would come out. And on my last attempt, just as I was about to give up, I decided to go into that section closest to the fire station.
“As I went in there, a security guy from the sports field told me that there is a guy standing there by the wall with a phone or something. As I came from the blind side, I approached him, and he didn’t know I’m a traffic officer as I wore a City of Cape Town jacket as a camouflage.
“And the vehicle I used was a caddy, which I use to store my camera and equipment.”
After being stopped by the traffic officer, the suspect said it was his phone, but he couldn’t unlock it. But then he changed his tune, saying that he had picked it up.
Sims added: “I then questioned him, ' How do you pick up a nice phone like that? ' Then he ran off, and I had the phone in my hands with me still.”
After the phone was successfully picked up, that’s where the tracking of the owner started.
Sims said he posted a message on several WhatsApp safety community groups, and a lady reached out to him saying that she recognised the screen lock image as the manager of Spur in Westgate Mall.
He concluded: “The victim didn’t open a case; he was just glad that he got his phone back and burst into tears and thanked me.”