Along the Watchtower
By M. Veera Pandiyan
While the police must be defended for taking firm action against ruthless criminals, their accounts of shootouts must also be seen to be plausible.
THE bullet–riddled car was by the side of the road. Inside, a 29–year old woman lay dead and two others were bleeding profusely from gunshot wounds.
The driver who miraculously escaped unhurt said he did not hear any sirens before they were shot at.
“There was a flash of blue lights. Many shots were fired and my friend is dead,” said the man, a pilot.
Apparently, a crack team of police officers had been pursuing a hijacked car of the same colour seen on the road earlier.
But tragically for the woman and her two friends who suffered serious injuries but survived, they got the wrong vehicle.
The lethal blunder was only discovered when other cops arrived at the scene after the sharpshooters had left.
The hijacked car was found somewhere else.
Don’t remember reading this story in the newspapers? No, it is not a case that was covered up.
It is a true account of what happened recently in Pretoria, South Africa, where policemen are now operating on a “shoot–to–kill” directive.
Cops in South Africa, where the rates of violent crimes are only second to Colombia, were previously told to fire warning shots first.
Now, it’s all about “matching criminals’ firepower with deadly force without worrying about what happens next,” to quote its new police chief Bheki Cele.
Are our men in blue operating under a similar policy, based on recent cases of alleged criminals gunned down by the police?
We can’t fault Malaysians for thinking so, although CID director Datuk Mohd Bakri Mohd Zinin has denied it emphatically.
He said that in all the cases, police had been fired at first, stressing that when police officers use their guns they do not aim to kill, but only shoot to stop the threat of deadly force.
“It is clearly within the right of the police to act in self–defence and protect the lives of innocent bystanders,” he said.
No one in their right mind will question the rights of the police or their duties in ensuring that the country is safe from dangerous criminals.
It is just that the police script used in describing each deadly shootout is farcically similar.
The standard template: Cops either see or are tipped off about wanted criminals “behaving suspiciously” in a car. (Wouldn’t it be useful if behaviour deemed suspicious in a vehicle is better explained — like sharpening parangs or loading revolvers, perhaps?)
Next, a short high–speed chase (irrespective of whatever cars the suspects are driving). Then almost on cue, the criminals would fire shots at the policemen who would shoot back, killing all of them.
The CID director rightly said that Malaysians usually don’t raise a hue and cry whenever police officers are killed by criminals in the course of their duties.
“We have to defend the actions of our men who risk their lives facing the new breed of violent criminals who do not hesitate to shoot at police and innocent civilians,” he said.
There is no squabble over Datuk Bakri’s statements.
The police must be defended for taking the correct action, and innocent people must always be protected from ruthless criminals.
But the accounts of shootouts must also be seen to be plausible, not as doubtful repetitions that even police officers must surely be embarrassed of.
Can mistakes like the case of the South African women happen here?
The more pertinent question is has it happened here, and if so, how many times?
Without proper inquiries in all cases involving shootings of suspected criminals, we will never know.
The dead men can’t tell tales, so should we just take the police versions about who they were and what they were guilty of?
Much as we want our homes and streets to be safe from criminals, they must be punished only through the legal system, certainly not via what is being perceived as arbitrary executions.
Our highest law, the Federal Constitution, is clear on this. Article 5 (1) states: “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty, save in accordance with the law.”
Section 15 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code explicitly states: “Nothing in this section gives a right to cause the death of a person who is not accused of an offence punishable with death or with imprisonment for life.”
The official report of the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (E/CN.4/2006/53.48) states that lethal force is sometimes strictly necessary to save the lives of innocent people from lawless violence.
But it stresses that such use must be regulated within the framework of human rights law.
Doing otherwise conveys the message that legal standards have been replaced with a “licence to kill.”
> Associate Editor M. Veera Pandiyan likes this quote attributed to Buddha: “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.”