WATCH: Viral 'drive-by shooting' exposed as an anti-gang stunt
Videos of an apparent drive-by shooting and a gun battle have been revealed as a stunt to keep children out of gangs.
In the first video‚ which went viral this week‚ occupants of a green Volkswagen Citi Golf shoot at four men. One of them falls and others take to their heels. A gun-toting man takes aim at the car.
A second video shows a gunman shooting at another man in the street. Shortly afterwards‚ a small child obliviously wanders about the street‚ clearly intrigued by the hullabaloo.
TimesLive reported on the videos on Friday after establishing that they were filmed in Leonsdale‚ Elsies River. On Saturday‚ Twitter user Tumi Sole took to the social media platform and said‚ in reference to the videos: “Most of us fell for this. It was a movie shoot.”
Most of us fell for this.
It was a movie shoot 😂😂😂
— Tumi Sole (@tumisole)
Sole posted a video clip showing the occupants of the green Golf alighting from the car and jokingly showing off pieces of metal barely resembling guns. Sole also posted video of an Afrikaans-speaking man explaining why they staged the videos.
The man says the videos are meant to demonstrate to young people considering joining gangs how quickly their lives can be snuffed out.
The man pleads with parents to sensitise young boys about the dangers of gangs. He concludes by revealing that police probing the videos approached him and “they found nothing”.
Twitter users were relieved. Lerato Phiri said: “Bathong‚ to think I was praying.”
But Komasasa was not impressed: “But is [sic] wrong still to execute such action in front of young children is bad‚ it portrayed the wrong message. I’m still not okay with it.”
Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel André Traut told TimesLIVE on Friday that police had no record of a shooting in Elsies River on Thursday. He confirmed that police were aware of the video footage.
“The irresponsible sharing of inaccurate news on social media platforms is strongly condemned as it creates unnecessary panic in the respective communities‚” said Traut.