Armed shopper faces police probe after EFF lays criminal complaint

A woman who pointed what appears to be a gun at EFF protesters outside the Walmer Park Clicks on Tuesday is now facing a possible charge after the EFF laid a criminal complaint against her.

This after both parties initially declined to lay complaints.

A witness who videotaped the ugly confrontation between EFF protesters and the gun-toting woman shopper outside the Clicks store said she stopped recording after seeing the gun “because I thought if there were shots I would have to run”.

After Tuesday’s melee, the grey-haired shopper, who the witness said had been pushed around and prevented from entering the store, and two EFF members were handcuffed by police and taken to the Walmer police station.

However, all three were later released without being charged. Police said the firearm in the woman’s possession was licensed.

However, late on Wednesday, police spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidu said a complaint had been laid.

“The EFF went back to SAPS Walmer and opened a case of pointing of a firearm against the woman,” Naidu said.

The witness who recorded the confrontation said she had noticed an altercation in the mall at about 10.15am.

“The woman was just trying to go to Clicks but the protesters told her she couldn’t,” the witness, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

She said she had heard the protesters shouting and swearing at the grey-haired woman, who was asking why she could not enter the store because she had medication she had to buy.

The shopper also video-recorded the protesters.

However, Walmer Park centre management said security guards had asked the woman to stop filming and that she had confronted the protesters.

Tuesday marked the second day of nationwide by protests by the EFF against Clicks as anger mounted over a racially charged advertisement the company had placed on its website.

The hair-care advert described the hair of two African women as “dry, damaged, frizzy and dull” while branding two white women’s hair as “colour-treated, fine, flat and normal”.  

The witness said: “They [the protesters] were laughing at her [armed shopper] and she asked them, ‘Why are you treating me like this?’

“Then they pushed her around and I thought I should start filming so if anything happened there would be proof.

“What they did to her was not right,” the woman said.

Shortly after the video footage begins, a female protester is heard shouting: “Go back to Europe.”

The grey-haired woman, who pulls out a gun later, cannot be heard clearly but shortly after she says something to the group a woman is heard shouting: “Take out your gun, take out your gun.”

A man joins in the chant and then lunges at the woman, who promptly pulls a gun out of her pink body-warmer and points it at the group.

As the man who had been heckling her sees the gun, he jumps back, and the shopper is hustled off by security guards, with the two protesters yelling at her, “shoot, shoot”. 

Earlier on Tuesday, police spokesperson Captain Sandra Janse van Rensburg said the shopper and two protesters — a man and a woman — were taken to the Walmer police station, where they were released because neither party wanted to lay a criminal complaint.

Walmer Park Shopping Centre manager Leonie Scheepers said a small group of protesters had gathered outside the store at about 10.15am, when the grey-haired woman started filming the protest.

“Centre security personnel approached her and requested that she cease recording.

“She ignored this request and then confronted the person who appeared to be the leader of the [protesting] group.

“An altercation ensued. During the altercation, the customer took out a firearm and pointed it at the group.

“Centre security immediately defused the situation and removed all parties safely from the centre into the car park, where they remained until the [police] arrived on site shortly thereafter.

“The firearm was removed, and [the police] detained the customer and two EFF members,” she said.

Scheepers said the centre did not permit the use or carrying of firearms.

“Mall security and [the police] remain on high alert and our Clicks store remains closed until further notice,” she said.

The EFF said the protests at Clicks stores by its members would continue despite a court order interdicting the EFF from intimidating Clicks employees and customers.

EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu, who was protesting outside a Clicks store in Sandton on Tuesday, said the protests would continue.

“We are protesting in all Clicks stores.

“We have not intimidated anyone.

“We have not intimidated staff members.

“We have not intimidated clients,” Shivambu told SABC news after the court order was issued.

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