Zagbo Pascal saw it happen. He was on the corner of Kerk and Polly streets in downtown Johannesburg, hanging out with some friends, when a single gunshot rang out. It was 5pm on Saturday, April 21, still broad daylight, and the streets were busy with foot traffic.
This is not the first gunshot to be heard in the area, nor will it be the last. Reflexively, everyone on the street ducked. But one bullet was enough.
Pascal looked up, and saw a man slumped on the wooden benches outside Yamampela Fast Foods and just across from a discount supermarket. Blood was streaming from his neck. And someone — “a young boy, slim” — was sprinting away from the scene, aggressively waving a gun just in case anybody decided to be a hero.
He disappeared south down Polly Street, presumably into a getaway car and from there straight on to the highway. It was all so quick that Pascal didn’t get a look at the gunman’s face, or even his clothes.
Soon, a crowd of hundreds had gathered around the body; from the balconies of the flats above, voyeurs craned for a glimpse of the scene.
“It was horrible. Pitiful. He was lying there with blood coming out of his neck. There was no way we could help him,” said Pascal.
The police took 40 minutes to arrive, and another two hours to take away the body.
Pascal and two other witnesses — a waitress at Yamampela and a vegetable seller across the road — agree it wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. The dead man’s bag and wallet were left untouched, even though he had two expensive cellphones and R15 000 in cash on him. […] CONTINUE READING
