556 Dead and Counting

556 people have been shot by South Africa’s police in the last year, this included 32 bystanders.

The death toll was the fourth consecutive rise that the Independent Complaints Directorate have recorded. The number of deaths caused by police action in South Africa has nearly doubled from 281 deaths since 2006-2006.

The death toll is nearing levels of the apartheid era where is it estimated by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation that 653 people where shot and killed by police in 1976.

The increased has been blamed by police of President Jacob Zuma’s call for a shoot-to-kill policy.

According to Durban resident Rhiannon Darcy; “Guns are very easy to get hold of and this means that there is a lot of violent crime. Hi-jacking and armed robberies happen every day. I have been here for 8 months and I have already witnessed 5 armed hi-jacking’s in broad daylight. So I totally agree with the shoot to kill policy. You can’t put the people in prison as they can’t afford the prison sentences and the re-offending rate is so high it is a waste of time. If someone hi-jacks a car and is driving around they will often shoot people randomly and drive so dangerously they cause many deaths by crashing. They are also hard to catch as the population is so massive and CCTV and things aren’t everywhere like here. As such, if a police man can legally shoot them to kill they can prevent many potential deaths.

The issue is not as cut and dry as it would appear people in the west, Miss Darcy also said that; “Police often abuse their power and they can potentially abuse this but there was so much corruption as it was to start within the police force that perhaps giving them more power and legal rights might have a positive affect where they won’t’ have to feel like they need to take the system into their own hands. A lot of innocent people get murdered everyday due to crime, rape and drugs so you do live in a constant state of terror.”

Whilst it is clear that the number of people being shot and killed by police in South Africa at the moment is far too high, and rising at an alarming rate there is also much more to the issue. The people of South Africa are not in uproar, like the people of Britain when police shot and killed Jean Charles de Menezes, it is perhaps seen as a necessary evil in attempting to make the streets safer for all.