Notorious gangsters were initially asked by PAGAD members to stop their criminal activities or be subject to "popular justice". A common PAGAD modus operandi was to set fire to drug dealers' houses and kill gangsters. PAGAD's campaign came to prominence in 1996 when the leader of the Hard Livings gang, Rashaad Staggie, was beaten and burnt to death by a mob during a march to his home in Salt River. South Africa's police quickly came to regard PAGAD as part of the problem rather than a partner in the fight against crime, and they were eventually designated a terrorist organization by the South African government.