Kotze went on to say that an investigation into the Google Street View photos will be conducted.
Advertisement
The images, taken in February 2015 in Junction Road, are of two men pointing a gun at an ADT private security guard, in plain sight of the Google Street View auto driving past.
Fortunately, the guard wasn’t injured in the incident, but his gun was stolen.
The robbery is under way as the Google vehicle drives up.
Just down the road a white BMW 1-Series has pulled up behind a van with ADT markings in the city in Gauteng province.
As the Street View vehicle passes, a man in a large green and yellow hat can be seen holding the driver at gunpoint as he is bundled out of the van and on to the grass verge.
He is dragged away from his vehicle and searched.
The NZ Herald noted that it is not clear whether the pickup in the Google Street View image was on patrol at the time or responding to an alarm call by a client.
ADT security guards are prime targets for hijacking by criminal gangs, as they often carry weapons, ammunition and body armour, theInternational Business Times reported.
Street View vehicle drivers work for the company on a short-term basis as contractors and Google takes their safety “very seriously”, the tech giant added.
Theunis Kotze, general manager ADT Inland Region, said: “It was an opportunistic crime where an ADT Reaction Officer was held at gunpoint by two criminals in Johannesburg”.
Apparently the captured images can and will be “looked into by SAPS and ADT” to further investigate the crime, so arrests may well follow in the wake of the images hitting the wider web.
Advertisement
Google themselves said that they are also looking into the incident and that they always cooperate with police when required.
