Talk to us on Inside IOL.
A security guard and a pedestrian on his way to work were shot and wounded early on Monday when robbers ambushed a cashvan in Lavender Hill - only to flee empty-handed as police arrived on the scene.
Police spokesperson Billy Jones said three cars - a Mercedes-Benz and two Ford Rangers - had approached a Fidelity van at 6.55am.
Shots were fired at the van, which was surrounded and forced off the road at the corner of Prince George Drive and Military Road in Lavender Hill.
Three men got out of the cars and tried to open the back of the van.
Eyewitnesses reported that the gunmen had fired about 20 shots before ramming the cashvan.
A man walking to work was shot in the back and one of the security officers was wounded, according to police on the scene.
Esme Curtis, who lives a few blocks away, said that at first she had thought the gunshots were a car backfiring.
"But it just kept on and on, it sounded like war," Curtis said.
"When I took my child to school a few minutes later, people were still hiding in their gardens and behind cars.
"I feel so sorry for the man who was shot," Curtis said. "He was innocently walking to work; I hope he will survive," she said.
Other witnesses said the gang had opened fire on the vehicle with automatic rifles and some gunmen had knelt in an attempt to shoot into the relatively soft sheet-metal floor.
Two cut open a side panel of the vehicle and started pulling out a large blue bag containing cash, but at that point a police patrol arrived and they fled.
Police radio control posted an all-points bulletin for other patrols to be on the look-out for the gang, driving in two bakkies - a black Nissan and a silver Ford Bantam.
Police have opened a case of attempted armed robbery. The injured pedestrian has been rushed to hospital in a critical condition.
At the time of going to press, police were searching the suburbs around the scene for the gang's getaway cars.
A detective on the scene said the robbers' vehicles had probably been stolen and would have been abandoned soon after the attack in a side street or another secluded spot where they would have switched to other getaway cars to keep police off their scent.