‘Gunshots have never sounded so sweet’

The Star journalist Yusuf Omar describes how two men smashed his car window and tried to strangle him.

“I’m sorry mfowethu (my brother),” said the man who had, an hour earlier, tried to strangle me through my car window while his partner ruffled through my pockets and stole my phone.

Now in handcuffs at Hillbrow police station, he sat quietly. His partner cried and said we had the wrong man, but I couldn’t forget those eyes.

The traffic was heavy on Joe Slovo Drive at 6pm on Saturday as people flocked to Ellis Park to watch the Boks. We stopped on the corner of Abel Road.

Two men crossed the road in front of the car, smiling.

Smash! And the driver’s side window was gone.

I hit the accelerator as a pair of big hands squeezed the air out of my throat, but the keys had been pulled out.

“Phones. Money,” they shouted, with both their bodies waist deep in the window.

Bang, bang.

The sound of a gun and sirens never sounded so good as at that moment.

The men ran into the darkness of a neighbouring park in separate directions, one pushing a woman onto the dust. Two officers gave chase while Constable Acceptance Nyakale asked if we were okay.

A minute later, Constable Sibusiso Mhlungu emerged from the darkness with a man in handcuffs. Five minutes later, a sweaty Constable Julius Nyandeni put the second man into the police van.

One of the two stolen cellphones were recovered.

“Please give me a job. I don’t like doing this to people,” said the 25-year-old from Alexandra.

He wore a green golfer and cream pants, which were now brown with mud and takkies.

He explained that he had been at a street party in Hillbrow, had had a few drinks and met three men who asked if he wanted to make some money.

“This was my first time. When I was 16, I used to rob people with a knife in Alex, but never hijacking.”

The other man continued to cry and beg.

“I don’t want to go to jail. I will be a lady in prison,” he said, biting his plastic white rosary necklace and drooling onto his T-shirt.

The 29-year-old offered his silver necklace, watch and cell- phone if I dropped the charges, and said he would never do it again. He said he was expecting a son.

Then he became aggressive.

“I will get out on bail on Monday. I know your face. You work at 47 Sauer Street.”

He claimed to have once been a security guard on Bree Street and had seen me frequently.

He then complained of pains in his legs and arms and was taken to hospital.

The two men were due to appear in the Hillbrow Magistrate’s Court on Monday to apply for bail.

yusuf.omar@inl.co.za

The Star