East London police joined their nationwide counterparts in prayer for the 85 officers killed in the last financial year.
This was part of the national prayer event held at the SAPS Tshwane Training Academy in Pretoria on Friday, when hundreds of police converged to pay tribute to their fallen colleagues.
Of the 85 officers who had been murdered, only 28 had been killed in the line of duty.
Just like the 2016-17 financial year‚ the cop killings amounted to 0.4% of the total number of killings the country recorded, police minister Bheki Cele revealed when he released crime statistics earlier this month.
Cambridge police spokesperson Captain Mluleki Mbi said that Thursday’s service included the lighting of a candle as a symbol of lighting out troubles police may be facing and to seek for divine intervention, strength, protection and guidance against attack and murder on police officials.
“The event was well received, even by people who are not police such as our cleaners and others in lower levels. We invited everyone. It was not a forced thing; we do not force other religions to pray with us because they work for SAPS.”
September was declared as national prayer safety month in 2014.
National police spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo could not be reached for comment as his phone ran unanswered on Friday.
However, people were kept updated through live tweets on the official SAPS Twitter page under the hashtags #SAPSPrayerDay #PoliceKillings #SaferSA #PoliceSafety.
National commissioner of crime detection Lieutenant-General Lebeoana Tsumane said:
“We need to realise that this does not only affect our members physically when they die but also affects our members who stay behind emotionally and spiritually.”..