Tonight, yet another southside home has been reduced to rubble after a fire that by all accounts was intentionally set.
It seems it's all part and parcel of an intimidation strategy being carried out by gang figures in the area. And it's one that antelope street resident Georgia Curry warned us about yesterday.
Voice of: Georgia Curry, Lisa Lauriano's cousin
"The information we get, they are supposed to burn down 25 houses around here."
Reporter <
"Why?"
Voice of: Georgia Curry
"I have no idea."
And while that statement may have seemed like sensationalism yesterday it was anything but today when the commissioner himself confirmed that his intel confirms Curry's fears.
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"The problem is more prevalent in the Antelope Street extension area and particularly since this weekend, it has escalated as well as in the Mayflower area and Kraal Road, Caesar Ridge area where you know there is an intense feud between Supal street and SSG. We have received intelligence that a certain group in the Antelope street extension area have been threatening to burn down houses. There are certain people living in the area that other gang group is saying we don't want them there. Now who are they to dictate who must live there? So that is the extent to which this has gone and while yes, we have increased our presence in the area to do patrols, we cannot mind every home and so what these elements are doing is that they monitor the movement of the police and when the police go one way, then they go what needs to be done. They have been mediation done by the mediation team and in the mediation from what I'm told that the other group was adamant that they feud is not going to stop unless the other group moves from back there. Now the other group is saying, I'm not going to move, so that have seen the problem escalated, so I'm hoping now that with is being done, they'll be able to be at prison together and they can find some common ground that when they come, they can coexist in that area."
But that may be way too much optimism because right now the facts on the ground are that rivalries are high enough that rival gangs have no qualms about attacking and obliterating that which are perhaps most sacred homes.
It's what happened to Christopher Hyde's house last night after Sunday night's fatal failed attempt. Here's how the commissioner explained that series of events.
Reporter
"If you could explain the connection between the burning of Christy Hyde's house today and the murder that happened on Sunday night in the Antelope Street extension London bridge area."
Chester Williams
"Like I said they are 2 feuding groups back there and yes there is a direct connection between the burning of the house and the shooting that happened Sunday. As a matter of fact, from what we have gathered through our investigation it was actually a shootout between 2 groups and that shootout resulted in the death of the young man who was killed."
