PORT ELIZABETH - ARMED RESPONSE OFFICER KILLED IN A HAIL OF BULLETS AT PETROL STATION

A Port Elizabeth Fidelity ADT armed response officer was shot dead in what appears to be a hijacking.

Dumisa Tyendiso, 29, was shot while parked at the Shell Motherwell petrol station in Xabane Street on Thursday.

According to police, three gunmen approached him at 7pm and opened fire as he sat in his Fidelity ADT Nissan NP200 bakkie.

“As they opened fire he managed to jump out of his vehicle in an attempt to escape. The suspects shot him several times in his legs and upper body before they fled the scene in his security bakkie,” police spokesperson Captain Andre Beetge said.

Beetge said Tyendiso died on the scene.

“The vehicle was found abandoned about 10 minutes later in Mlimane Street, NU6 and taken for further forensic analysis,” he said.

It is believed that the suspects were after Tyendiso’s firearm.

“They stole the firearm and the cellphone before fleeing,” he added.

This comes only months after a series of attacks in which armed response officers were killed in Nelson Mandela Bay.

On December 27, Nitrous armed response officer Roderick Erasmus. Erasmus, 49, was shot dead during a business robbery at a shop in Greenbushes.

He was responding to a robbery when he was ambushed.

In October, a Cash-in-Transit armed guard was killed when he was ambushed at the Boxer Superstores in Motherwell while topping up the Capitec Bank ATM.

The common item stolen during all the attacks was their company firearm.

“In most of these cases the suspects want to the weapons, We can presume that they want the firearm to commit crimes,” Beetge said.

The case has been taken over by the Provincial Organised Crime Investigation Unit.

Anyone with information can contact Lt-Col Willie Mayi on 082 697 5914.

via - HERALDLIVE