Shoot to kill madness
The deputy minister of safety and security Susan Shabangu is getting a lot of press and a lot of popular kudos after her exhortation to police to shoot to kill.
“When a criminal is pointing a gun in the face of our members, there’s no way they can shoot at the feet or the toe,” she said. “It’s government policy, it’s within the law. Police, when under threat, must protect themselves.”
“We are saying police must not be apologetic. They must shoot them,” she said.
At the risk of opening myself to tirades from the hang-em-high brigade, I have to side with the sane minority who think her comments over-step the mark. Police going around blowing away bad guys would soon find us with a society run by Dirty Harry. When the bad guys dead who is to say if he was posing a deadly threat or not - or even if they were a bad guy. We have courts to determine guilt, we don't need badged and uniformed vigilantes running around our streets and towns.
I also have a huge problem with this casual promotion of even more violence in our society as if we don't have enough problems with this already. The day Shabangu made her first comments they were broadcast on radio as we were preparing to take our three-year-old daughter to school. Our daughter (obviously mishearing and misunderstanding what was said) chirped from her baby seat: "Why is the lady on the radio saying I must kill my mommy and daddy?"
Maybe our daughter thinks her parents are the bad guys but she was really upset at what she heard such is the violence in that message. Is that the kind of world we want our kids living in?
April 18th, 2008 - 15:10
I am 100% behind the deputy minister’s statement. If I was a police woman and I my life was in danger,I would also shoot to kill. A police woman was recently raped by armed men in the presence of her partner. Fortunately for these thugs she was unarmed.She said to them she was HIV positive and they said fine and used condoms.Now tell me,if she’d been armed,would you have preferred her to shoot in the air or shoot straight at these thugs? I can’t wait for the death penalty to be brought back so we can live in peace with our children and not fear for their safety as well as ours.
When i was growing up it was safe for us to play outside until dark as no man ever saw us as women. I don’t know what is happening in our society nowadays. We live like prisoners in our own homes. Where i live,there’s not a single house that doesn’t have burglars and slam lock doors. It’s terrible.
April 18th, 2008 - 15:21
I support Susan Shabangu’s statement 101%. We are becoming a Columbia of sorts where the armed criminals get the last laugh…. For a change, someone says something I couldn’t have said better myself!
Would you rather she’d said “policeman & women…if in trouble, run for cover?”
Oh please!
April 20th, 2008 - 21:10
As a gun owner, I want to know if my life is put in danger by a gun weelding thug may I also shoot to kill and get away with it? Or is this one of those things that are only for the police to get away with? In other words is a life a police of more value than that of anyone els?
April 21st, 2008 - 07:35
On behalf of law-abiding citizens who are tired of being made targets by criminals who, by definition, are not going to abide by our gun laws, I think Dirty Harry had the right idea. I too support Susan Shabangu’s statement 100%
April 22nd, 2008 - 09:48
to the police man & woman, kill the morons. what else can they do. shoot in the air. with criminals they don’t shoot warning shots they shoot straight. tell me, what can the police people do then.
April 22nd, 2008 - 10:05
We want more sport on your website so far the website is more on the news and 1 or 2 stories from sport which is not cool to us sport lovers, especialy local sport like Premier legue games(Rugby). Thank you
April 29th, 2008 - 14:44
People the deputy minister ws not suggesting that police should go around killing criminals without posing any risk to them(of course imminent one,the is nothing with her statement considerng the fact that people are leaving the country because they feel unsafe even in their homes.In terms of the law the police can use deadly force if the criminal concerned posed danger to the them or to the public at large provided that such force is reasonably in the circumstances and proportional to the danger posed by such “bastards”.She also correctly submitted that “she will deal himself with the law” ,people must not misinterprete what she intended.The police will not exceeds they powers at all,if they do so they will face justice.
April 29th, 2008 - 16:38
Our Constitution says “Everyone has the right to life.” Unfortunately, it does not say it so clearly what should happen should criminals deprive you of this right. It is high time this government of ours concentrated more on responsibilities instead of rights. It is also high time that repurcusions of various degrees of crime on the perpetrators should be clearly stated out.
I have read the Zimbabwean Constitution. It also has a similar clause but it is qualified to say that the right to life is limited if it is on instruction by a court of law (death sentence) or in defence of life and/or property. As a result, poor as that country is, criminal activities such as murder and robbery (except those that are Zanu PF motivated) are at a bare minimum. All citisens in that country are acutely aware that crime is punishable.
We need to follow the same route if we are serious in fighting crime!