This is not even vaguely accurate…it is what happens when stories are written with, of all people, the police as a single source. And it must be noted that there are always attempts to slander the victims of shack fires – most often as ungrateful quarrelling drunkards who cause the fires and then reject help.In fact the police arrived long after the fire brigade who had already got the blaze under control. There was a clash with the police after they tried to arrest a woman who had been blamed for the fire. People resisted the attempt at arrest and then started shooting with rubber bullets. They always shoot at any crowd of people in or coming from a shack settlement. Negotiation is not on their agenda. Not ever. It was after they started shooting that the stones were thrown. The actions of the police, and what they told this journalist, was just more of their usual attempts to blame the victims. The Kennedy Committee has to intervene and explain to the police that their job was to protect this woman.

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5037894

Police stoned after blaze

June 16, 2009 Edition 1

MPUME MADLALA

TWO Metro policemen were hospitalised after they were stoned by residents at the Kennedy Road informal settlement during a blaze that destroyed almost a hundred shacks this morning.

Residents were angry over the perceived slow response by the city’s fire department, and turned on the policemen who arrived first.

Fire department divisional commander Trevor Stevens said firemen were at the scene minutes after an emergency call was placed.

Police spokesman Senior Superintendent Vincent Mdunge said police were called to the scene by a man who claimed his girlfriend tried to set fire to him as he slept.

Mdunge said the man managed to escape and called the police. “When the SAPS and Metro Police arrived they were greeted by stones coming from residents who were angry that their shacks had caught fire and that fire-fighters had not arrived,” he said.

“Two Metro policemen were seriously injured – one sustained injuries to the head and the other to his body – and had to be rushed to hospital,” he said.

Mdunge said that as a result of the fire, about 100 shacks were destroyed, leaving many people displaced.

He said the woman who allegedly started the fire was taken in for questioning, and the city’s disaster management unit was trying to find shelter for those who had been displaced.