The slaughter of our cops

These are just 27 of the 48 police officers who have been killed across the country since January.

Of these, one quarter, or 12, have been killed in Gauteng.

The latest Gauteng police murder took place on Thursday. Reservist Constable Busisiwe Mehlwana, 33, of Pimville Zone 5, Soweto, was gunned down when she attended to an ATM bombing inside a convenience shop at the Total garage in Pimville. Mehlwana was shot in the upper body while inside a police car and died at the scene.

Her death came a day before a national summit of police killings was convened by Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa to try to grapple with the issue.

Police heads from all the provinces, MECs, ministers, deputy ministers, researchers, anti-crime activists and police unions all gathered under one roof to formulate a plan on how to wage war against police killings.

“It’s action time now… We are saying enough now! One police life lost is one too many,” Mthethwa said at the summit in Boksburg, where a pledge was signed to address police killings nationally.

“We need a sustainable campaign. We need a steely resolve to put the campaign on the agenda.”

Mthethwa has led the formation of a multi-disciplinary committee to address police killings.

Between January and June last year, 43 officers were killed nationwide. The figures have risen to 48 in the six months to June this year.

Mthethwa said a provincial breakdown between 2003 and 2011 showed Gauteng to be the worst-affected province, with 201 police killings over the eight-year period.

He said figures showed a decline since 2003, but more needed to be done.

“It (the multi-disciplinary committee) needs a co-ordinated and collective approach… We must build a united front against police killings,” said Mthethwa.

He said figures from the 2003 report on the circumstances under which police members were killed indicated that:

* 20 percent of killings happened when police responded to a crime or during a search-and-seizure operation;

* 4 percent of officers were killed by colleagues in the work environment;

* 2 percent of deaths were a result of love triangles or domestic violence;

* 5 percent of police died while arguing with the public; and

* 8 percent were killed for their service pistols.

Mthethwa said these trends were similar in police killings to date.

“What we have been mapping out over the past 10 years was consolidated through this summit and must go ahead now. We need to do something about it, collectively and as individuals,” he said.

National police commissioner General Bheki Cele described the criminal element killing police officers as “professional operatives”.

“What you are dealing with here are professional operatives, who plan their operations with military precision and arm themselves with the most-advanced weapons, including special armour-piercing ammunition.”

He said much had been done to deal with training issues, including the stretching of police training programmes to one year of theoretical training and 12 months of practical training.

Police training also now included basic training, street survival, firearm competency, and firearm principles and their application.

“We are sending officers on refresher and advanced training courses at regular intervals throughout their service. We are not a gang, we are a legitimately constituted and mandated organ of state,” Cele added. – The Star