Canal Walk robbery victim speaks out

Its time we started posting some good news stories here. We are getting side tracked a bietjie with the political crap. In SA it is a well known fact that you have won the lottery if you emerge from a violent confrontation with your life attached... hence the "I am sooooo lucky to be alive..." mantra that gets crapped out of many of our kinsman's mouths.

Here is todays good news story. No white people died in this farce...

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The man wounded in the armed robbery at Canal Walk has spoken of his terror at being shot at point-blank range in the popular shopping mall.

Raiyaan Slamong, of Rondevlei, was the only person injured when a gang of gunmen brazenly robbed two Checkers cashiers in the centre's Food Court on Tuesday night, after the close of business for the day.

Slamong, a sales assistant at a women's clothing boutique, had been watching a soccer match between Manchester United and Porto on a television in the shop window of a neighbouring restaurant when the shooting started."I heard the first gunshot and thought it was a balloon popping.

I was so into the match that I at first didn't know what was going on around me," he said from his home today. "Then I heard the second shot, and heard a woman scream. I looked, and the one man saw me looking at him. We dress in black for work and I think he thought I was a security guard.

He fired straight at me."The first bullet hit Slamong in the lower leg. On Thursday he showed how the bullet had passed cleanly through his foot, exiting through his sole, and his shoe.His mother, Jane Slamong, had screamed for him to come into the shop so she could lock them safely inside.

But the gunmen first fired several more shots at him as they ran past him, to escape through the centre's Entrance Two. Mercifully, he said, none of the other bullets hit him."It happened so quickly. I didn't realise I had been shot," Slamong said. His mother said: "I saw this blood running from his foot, and realised he had been hit."Slamong was taken to Milnerton Medi-Clinic, where X-rays showed that the bullet had missed all the bones in his foot.

He was still in pain this morning and described his condition as "not well".The late-night armed robbery at the shopping centre is being investigated by police, who on Wednesday studied CCTV footage in an attempt to identify the suspects.It transpired on Wednesday that the gang had attacked the cashiers as they walked from the Food Court back to Checkers, while being protected by two in-store guards.

Brian Weyers, marketing director for the Shoprite Group, which owns Checkers, said the attack took place despite the fact that Canal Walk Checkers was safeguarded by 16 security guards, and had 24-hour CCTV surveillance.

He said security guards on duty had immediately responded and assisted members of the public to safely exit the area. Two of the guards had also pursued the gunmen.Police said no arrests had been made.