By Jenna Etheridge | From News24

Three men walk down a quiet Cape Town neighbourhood road carrying a stolen flat-screen TV, seemingly unaware their movements are being scrutinised.

A resident peeping out of the window logs a call to the Western Cape crime channel on a cellphone app and it is not long before another user down the road responds with an updated location.

Meanwhile, a controller has logged a call from the television owner and notifies the police of their location.

This, says Cape Town controller Justin Kumlehn, is the typical scenario of how the app works.

Kumlehn, 27, has worked as a volunteer for the past five months.

“It’s for the community, by the community,”he says.

“It’s about getting the community to work together so criminals see they can’t just get away with something.

“That is the whole basis for the channel. We don’t support vigilantism and we don’t want to take the place of emergency services.”

Two-way radio

The live channel, which has 1 169 trusted users on the Zello mobile app, works like a two-way radio. Anyone can download the app and register. Users are assigned the ‘trusted’ status when they pass a background check done to ensure no criminal elements infiltrate the network. There are over 100 channels one can join.

The initiative started in April last year when the Wierdabrug community policing forum set up the “Centurion Concerned Citizens” group. The Western Cape channel was launched in September and there are now channels in almost every province and numerous areas across the country.

Read more at News24