Civilian deaths mount as SA police "shoot to kill" (News Feature)

By Clare Byrne Nov 13, 2009, 13:12 GMT

Johannesburg - The increasingly gung-ho approach to crime-fighting of South Africa's police is under fire after a toddler was shot dead by a policeman last week in the latest case of police bungling claiming innocent lives.

Atlegang Phalane, 3, was hit by a bullet last weekend while sitting in the back seat of his uncle's parked car outside a relative's house in Rabie Ridge, a low-income suburb on the northern edge of Johannesburg.

Two police officers searching for a suspect pulled up outside the house and opened fire on the parked car, killing him instantly.

The police Independent Complaints Directorate said one of the officers alleged he had seen a pipe that looked like a gun, but that no weapon or pipe had been found at the scene.

One policeman was arrested over the killing, which follows a number of police killings of civilians in recent weeks that the political opposition says is the consequence of a new, hardline tack by President Jacob Zuma and his security chiefs.

Last month, Olga Kekana, 29, was shot dead and two of her fellow passengers injured when police shot at the car in which they were travelling after mistaking it for a hijacked car.

In another incident under investigation, two policemen in Pretoria shot dead a street vendor after he allegedly insisted they pay for their food, while a young man in a Pretoria township died of a police bullet to the head after he ran away from police when they came to his shack to question him.

Deaths at the hands of police have been on the increase for a few years, since the police started coming under intense pressure to get a handle on crime before the 2010 football World Cup.

Around 50 people are murdered each day in the country and another 50 the victims of a murder attempt, making South Africa one of the world's most violent societies.

Pitted against heavily-armed criminal gangs, police are understandably jittery, given the high risk of death or injury. From April 2008 to April 2009, a total of 109 police were killed on the job, according to police statistics.

Over the same period, 912 people were reported to have died in police custody or as a result of police action, 120 more cases than the previous year.

'The suspects - when they attack us, they shoot to kill. We must protect ourselves,' one detective, who has been on the job for 18 years in southern Johannesburg and who has lost nine colleagues in action, told the German Press Agency dpa.

The detective approves of the 'shoot to kill' doctrine espoused by the country's new national police commissioner, Bheki Cele.

Cele, a Stetson-wearing former provincial security minister came into the job guns blazing in July, telling police not to die with their firearms in their holsters and to shoot first if their lives were under threat.

Zuma has also encouraged police to use lethal force, on the basis that 'criminals don't take an oath to do warning shots.'

In the wake of the recent spate of civilian killings, Zuma's spokesman has since stressed that the president's remarks 'did not translate to a licence for policemen to just go out and shoot people.'

Cele has also warned police against being 'trigger-happy' but deputy police minister Fikile Mbalula on Thursday brushed off civilian deaths as 'unavoidable.'

'When you are caught up combat with criminals, innocent people are going to die, not deliberately but in the exchange of fire,' he said, repeating his demand of police: 'Shoot the bastards.'

The controversy comes as the government prepares to amend the law to give police more license to shoot - including at fleeing suspects.

The main opposition Democratic Alliance has warned such a move would return South Africa to apartheid-style policing of 'shooting unarmed citizens in the back.'

'One almost wants to ask the question: What will come first?' Johan Burger, a retired former senior police and senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies questioned. 'Will crime get out of control first, or will the police get out of control first?'