Police have confirmed that an alarming video claiming that a baby had been flung from a car hijacked in Woodstock is false.
The video, which was first circulated on crimewatch chat groups and later on social media, showed police investigating a black vehicle in Mitchells Plain. The person narrating says that the car, a Mercedes Benz, had been hijacked and a baby found in the stolen car was flung from it.
Capt FC van Wyk of the police’s provincial media office said while the car had indeed been hijacked on Tuesday 3 February no baby was flung from it.
He said the car with its five occupants, four adults and an 8-month-old, had been outside a house in Sydney Street, District Six, at about 19:45 when three armed men approached and forced them out of the vehicle.
The men stripped the adults of their possessions outside of the car and then climbed inside.
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“The baby was still in the vehicle sitting in a car seat,” Van Wyk said. “The father of the baby confronted the suspects and asked them to give his child to him. The baby was removed from the car by the suspects and placed on the pavement in the car seat.”
Ruth Solomons, the spokesperson for Metro Police, gives a slightly different account, however.
According to Solomons the baby was found “not far from the crime scene”.
The men then fled in the vehicle, but the tracker company contacted Metro Police at 20:30 to say that the vehicle had been located.
It was cornered in Albion Close, Rondevlei, where it had been parked with one of the hijackers still inside.
The 41-year-old man was arrested but Van Wyk said that none of the weapons had been found in the vehicle.
The car has been booked in as evidence.Van Wyk appealed to anyone who had information on the case to contact police at 08600 10111 or on the mobile application MySAPS anonymously.
