Bullets fly at Greenacres

Brave cop hit in gunfight with gang robbing jewellery store

A DRAMATIC shootout between a gang of heavily armed robbers and a police officer had shoppers diving for cover at the Greenacres shopping centre yesterday, just moments after the gang smashed their way into a jewellery store.

And in a bizarre twist, two of the men who escaped were arrested when – inexplicably – they returned to the scene of the crime later in one of the getaway cars they had used earlier.

Pandemonium broke out at the popular Port Elizabeth centre shortly after 10.30am when seven armed robbers entered the complex and smashed Fischer’s jewellery store’s reinforced glass display windows with sledgehammers.

The shootout left one suspect critically wounded while a Mount Road police station warrant officer, Werner Meyer, 29, who was also shot, is in a stable condition in hospital.

-Gareth Wilson