Annals of Social Sciences & Management Studies - Juniper Publishers
Policing encompasses a multitude of diverse tasks,
including peacekeeping, criminal investigation, traffic control, and
providing emergency medical service. Being a law enforcement officer is
to engage one’s own life to save the state and its citizens, to ensure
the safety and security of the people and to ensure people are
respecting the rules and regulations that govern the country including
its constitution and the Bill of rights. The significance of this study
is to analyze the circumstances in which police officers are killed by
examining their tactics used to respond to the scene of the incident and
suggesting new approaches that can help in preventing the loss of
manpower within the law enforcement structure. The study used a
qualitative secondary data approach to generate data with a systematic
method for data analysis. The findings reveal that the proliferation of
firearms in South Africa, the suspect’s perseverance in violence,
suspect protection, and defense are some of the causes of the killing of
the police officers on duty. This study suggests that the interventions
of law enforcement officers should depend on the type or nature of the
crime. A violent crime that involved murder should be attended to
carefully to neutralize or incapacitate the suspect by all means.
Intelligence-led policing involving ununiformed members of the
community, the zero tolerance and community policing approaches must be
applied to curb or prevent the killing of on-duty law enforcement
officers.
Keywords: Policing; Crime; The scene of the Incident; Death of police
Let us first remind the public that the South African
Police Service is governed by Chapter 11 of the Constitution of the
Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Act 108 of 1996) that stipulates the
South African Police Service has a responsibility to:
- prevent, combat, and investigate crime.
- maintain public order.
- protect and secure the inhabitants of the Republic and their property; and
- uphold and enforce the law.
- create a safe and secure environment for all people in South Africa.
- prevent anything that may threaten the safety or security of any community.
- investigate any crimes that threaten the safety or security of any community.
- ensure criminals are brought to justice, and
- participate in efforts to address the causes of crime.
Following long and often bitter negotiations, the
ANC, Inkatha and the government signed a National Peace Accord on 14
September 1991. The agreement contained ‘general provisions’ which
included the following: The police shall endeavor to protect the people
of South Africa from all criminal acts and shall do so in a rigorously
non-partisan fashion, regardless of the political belief and
affiliation, race, religion, gender or ethnic origin of the perpetrators
or victims of such acts… The police shall be guided by the belief that
they are accountable to society in rendering their policing services and
shall therefore conduct themselves to secure and retain the respect and
approval of the public. Through
such accountability and friendly, effective, and prompt service,
the police shall endeavor to obtain the cooperation of the public
whose partnership in the task of crime control and prevention is
essential…… the police must ‘preserve the fundamental and constitutional
rights of each individual in South Africa, to ‘secure the favor and
approval of the public’, to use the least possible degree of force,
to ‘be sensitive to the ‘balance between individual freedom and
collective security and to act professionally and honestly.
Concerning the above, Kreuzer [1] points out that with the
state’s means of legitimate force under their control, why should
regimes resort to or tolerate vigilantism, instead of employing the
state security apparatus? One obvious answer is a weakness of the
police and the judiciary branch that undermines their capacity to
enforce the rule of law.
Research on on-duty police violence hardly encounters such
problems because the police do not conceal such activities. In
the case of on-duty police killings, the challenge is to distinguish
between real self-defense, individual acts of excessive violence,
and signs of a systemic application of such violence. In this
study, the terms Police officer and law enforcement will be used
interchangeably.
One of the most important decisions the state can make is to
cause the death of one of its citizens and perhaps the most difficult
and controversial decision a police officer can make as an agent of
the state is to take the life of a fellow citizen [2]. The authority of
the police to use force represents one of the most misunderstood
powers granted to representatives of the government. Police
officers are authorized to use both psychological and physical
force to apprehend criminals and solve crimes [3]. The use of force
typically occurs when police are to make an arrest and the suspect
is resisting. Research indicates that the police are most likely to
use force when pursuing a suspect and attempting to exercise
their arrest powers [3].
Deadly force is justified when an individual poses a serious
threat to the safety of the on-scene officers or bystanders [4]. An
armed individual is a prime example of such a threat. Klinger et al.
[5], in an analysis of police shootings in St. Louis, MO, report that
in 79 per cent of incidents in which police discharge their weapon,
at least one of the suspects possessed a firearm. Zimring (2017:
56) analyzed a dataset assembled by The Guardian of fatal police
shootings in the United States in 2015 and reports that in 56 per
cent of those instances, the decedent possessed a firearm.
The major reason police shoot so often is that guns appear to
be in the hands of civilians. Because firearms are also the cause
of death in more than 90 per cent of all fatal assaults on police,
the dominant role of fear of opponents with guns is easy to
comprehend (Zimring, 2017: 57). It is thus a commonplace that
the proliferation of concealable firearms in the civilian population
is a major source of the singularly high rate of killings by the police
in the United States (Zimring, 2017).
Because firearms, unlike most other weapons, provide the
capacity to inflict bodily harm at a distance, suspects possessing
firearms pose a particularly high risk to police officers. Zimring
(2017) argues that weapon availability is the only plausible
explanation for the vastly higher rates of fatal police shootings
in the United States compared to European countries. Still, the
linkage between firearm availability and fatal police shootings is
not obvious. As described by Cook [6] presently only 31 per cent
of U.S. households possess firearms. For the vast majority of those
owners, there is no realistic prospect of their using the weapon for
an illegal purpose. But Cook [6] goes on to observe, “in jurisdictions
in which gun possession is common, offenders may find it easier to
access a gun in the informal or underground market. Indeed, the
stock of guns in private possession serves as a reservoir from which
most problematic transactions originate.”
By this mechanism, higher overall firearm availability may
translate into more frequent encounters between police and
armed suspects, even though most guns are held by law-abiding
individuals. The general availability of firearms may also affect
the probability of fatal shootings in circumstances in which
the decedent is later found to be unarmed. Police officers must
make judgements about the risk of harm at the beginning of
each encounter. In places where gun availability is higher, police
officers may surmise that they are at greater risk of harm via
what economists and statisticians call statistical prediction/
discrimination and act accordingly [7].
Nevertheless, police officers have been blamed for being brutal,
but what remains to know is to find out what makes them brutal.
In contemporary South Africa, people tend to forget the mission
of the police and its challenges. The name “Law enforcement”
itself says it all. They can only be law enforcement where there is
disobedience of the law, where there is a breach of the law. In most
cases, the breach of the law is done in a violent way threatening
the lives of the surrounding people together with their properties.
This calls for the intervention of law enforcement officers whose
mission is to protect the people and their properties from danger.
However, law enforcement is an inherently hazardous
profession. Officers are at risk for duty-related accidents and
illness, as well as intentional assaults that result in injury or death
[8]. Assaults occur spontaneously during arrests, investigations,
or the pursuit of suspects. In most cases, these assaults are
unplanned acts of violence that arise to resist arrest, although
they may also be opportunistic expressions of hostility during
an encounter between law enforcement officers and someone who rejects
police authority and presence [9]. These unplanned assaults have been
referred to by some scholars as spontaneous
ambushes [10].
In 1 month in 1980, four New York City police officers were
murdered and six more were badly wounded in gunfights. Over
the past 26 months, 14 police officers have been killed, 53 were
hit by gunfire, and another 150 have been shot at but not hit. Of
the four men charged with killing police officers in 1980, two had
backgrounds of severe mental disorders, while the remaining
two carried extremely long records for assault, robbery, and
drug offences but had spent little time in prison [11]. These last
two offenders typify a new breed of criminal who accepts brief
periods of incarceration as a way of life and learns to manipulate
the criminal justice system.
Police are charged with preventing crime and apprehending
perpetrators, putting them in conflict with suspected and actual
perpetrators of crimes. They actively seek encounters with
suspects, who may tend towards violence and lack respect for
authority. In the form of performing their duty to protect the public,
police officers can find themselves in the sensitive and potentially
volatile position of protecting protesters who are protesting the
actions of the police themselves. Police deal with a wide variety
of situations in their work. They encounter minor to serious
potentially dangerous deadly incidents. Hence, in some instances,
they are obliged to be brutal to must the violent situation.
The police are the instrument of the people to achieve and
maintain order; their efforts are founded on principles of public
service and ultimate responsibility to the public. The role the
police officer plays in society is a difficult one; he must clearly
understand complex social relationships to be effective. He is
not only a part of the community he serves, and a part of the
government that provides his formal base of authority, but he is
also a part of the criminal justice system that determines what
course society will pursue to deter lawbreakers or rehabilitate
offenders in the interest of public order.
Nevertheless, as highly visible representatives and guardians
of society, law enforcement officers are very public figures.
Targeted assaults on police officers, referred to as ambushes in
previous literature, are a particularly perplexing problem with
significant implications for society at large [9].
Studies from the USA suggest that the rate with which law
enforcement officers are killed can be predicted by the general
homicide rate, the rate of justifiable homicide by police officers
and by the degree of violence and social disintegration in a society
[12]. On July 7, 2016, five police officers were killed and nine
wounded in Dallas in an act of targeted violence. Three days later,
in Baton Rouge, three officers were killed and three wounded in a
targeted attack [9]. By 2015, the majority of the American public
(58%) supported the view that there was a “war on police” in the
United States [13].
Death and injury to serving South African Police Service (SAPS)
is a major concern. Recent spates of police murders in South Africa
confirm that policing is a high-risk profession (Correspondent,
2018, Huffington Post, 2018/06/27; Correspondent, 2018, South
African Government Agency, 2018/09/11, Hosken, 2018). South
African society is characterized by high levels of violent crime and
interpersonal conflict and police officials serve on the front line in
this context with many deaths occurring among serving officials
[14]. This means that police officials in South Africa are exposed
to the darkest elements of human nature.
Kempen (2005:19) states that the high incidence of attacks
and the killing of police officials is cause for concern. According
to the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation [CSVR]
(2009:65), the rate at which members of the police are murdered
in South Africa is considered exceptionally high. During the
2016/2017 financial year, 57 police officials were killed during
active duty, while 29 were killed in the line of duty during the
2017/218 financial year (Peterson, 2018, News24, 2018/09/02).
In the first six months of 2019, 26 police officials were
killed while on active duty (Correspondent, 2019, South African
Government Agency, 2019/06/27. Between 2014 and 2017, a
total of 325 police officials died, which is an average of 81 police
officials annually. What is noteworthy, is that approximately
60% of police officials are murdered while they are off duty
(Correspondent, 2019, South African Government Agency,
2019/06/27). The killing of police officials was highlighted as a
problem in the Quarterly Report of the SAPS before the turn of
the new millennium (CIMC, 1998:42). In conjunction with this,
Conradie [15] emphasized that attacks on police officials have a
detrimental effect on police morale and poses a stumbling block
to their effectiveness.
Geldenhuys (2007:11) echoes the same sentiments by
reiterating that “there are many police heroes who have paid the
highest price to protect us and our property from criminals who
walk our streets”. Police officials who are killed while on duty are
vulnerable when they respond to crime and enter a dangerous
situation. They sometimes rush into the situation without any
thought for personal safety and the seriousness of the crime
situation, for example, during a crime in progress [16]. The fact
that the situation develops rapidly, means those police officials
arrive at active crime scenes and do not have time to take proper
precautions, such as wearing bullet-proof vests, thus placing
themselves at greater risk of being killed. Hence the need for new
approaches to the scene of an incident by police officials when
attending to a crime situation.
In South Africa, the killing of police officers by
criminals has
become a norm. South Africa has lost many of its SAPS at the crime
scene in the past years. In 2021, more than 27 police officers have lost
their lives in the line of duty with considerable consequences attached
to the death of police and their families victims of the
losses. This can be condoned by the current policy denying police
officers the right to shoot, even in the event of self-defense.
Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union provincial secretary
Nthabeleng Molefe said: “they were deeply saddened by the
widespread police killings”. According to Police Minister Bheki
Cele, by Friday, seven police officers had been killed in 15 days in
South Africa (2021)1
The police officer’s distraught sister, Sindi Gule said the
family was on their way to Cape Town from Makhanda in the
Eastern Cape. She did not want to comment further. SA Policing
Union (Sapu) acting deputy general secretary Peter Ntsime said
the continued killing of police officers in the country, whether
on or off-duty, reached an alarming rate a long time ago (2021).
Ntsime said the union had consistently condemned police killings,
and there had been national summits and other plans to curb the
scourge, but to no avail.
The killing of police officers was “a pandemic that the whole
population should be concerned about. The justice system should
show no mercy to police killers,” said Ntsime (2021). There should
be a unit dedicated to investigating incidents where police are
killed, because if a police officer is suspected of having done
something in the community, then there is the Independent Police
Investigative Directorate, said Molefe. We have also asked the
police to shoot and kill, and we will represent them as a union
because we see that now the police attacks are on the rise as if it is
a matter of leaving the community alone so that criminals are left
to fend for themselves. Molefe.
Molefe urged the public to work with the police to arrest
criminals.
We strongly urge that those who have been arrested be charged
with treason and receive a heavier sentence than in the past so
that others who wish to do the same can see the consequences.
They should be made an example of, he said.
Five police officers have been killed in the province in the
past three weeks which is a clear indication that criminals are on
a warpath against the police. The murder of a police officer is a
direct attack on the state and the rule of law, therefore the only
bodies we should be counting are those of criminals and not of
police officers. Police must not die with a gun in their hands, but
they must defend themselves decisively, said Mshengu2.
March 6: Sergeant Thamsanqa Mbedu from Empangeni FCS
was shot dead 27 times while performing investigation duties.
March 4: Detective-Captain Sam Nyawose, 55, of the Umkomaas
SAPS Detective Service, was gunned down in an alleged hit while
on his way to work.
February 20: Sergeant Makhosaze Mdlangathi, 33, and
Sergeant Mfikelwa Mtolo, 36, were killed execution-style while off
duty in Taylor’s Halt, near Pietermaritzburg.
February 18: Constable Mfihloyakhe Ndlovu, 45, was killed
when he and his colleague responded to a domestic violence
complaint in Welbedacht East, Chatsworth.
February 7: Constable Sizwe Mthethwa, stationed at Inanda
police station, was stabbed, and killed while off duty.
On top of the police dearth in KwaZulu-Natal, the latest
quarterly crime statistics show 32 officers were killed between
April and June 2021 in the country at large of whom nine were
on duty3.
Police officers are of any threat to the community, instead,
they are here for our safety and security. Generally, criminals
and delinquents are the ones who shout about police brutality
forgetting that to some extent police officers are called to be
brutal when they deal with violent situations due to the nature
of the incidents they deal with on a daily basis. Any law-abiding
member of the community will feel protected by the presence
of the police during police patrol, but those who will see their
unlawful business deterred will always cry out about policing
activities in their areas. The killing of a police officer must be
severely punished since such a killing is a threat to the sovereignty
of the state. The purpose of this study is to seek to make a society
where criminals will be afraid of law enforcement officers and not
vice versa. This paper will address the following objectives: (1) to
determine the causes of death of police officers at the Scene of the
Incident. (2) to evaluate their strategies to respond to the Scene of
the Incident. (3) to establish different approaches to respond to
the scene of the incident.
Because qualitative researchers examine how people
learn
about and make sense of themselves and others and how they
structure and give meaning to their daily lives, this research
adopted a qualitative approach in a quest to respond to the
objectives of the study. According to Walters [17], qualitative
research involves the collection and interpretation of subjective
data that often is shaped by social, cultural, and political realities
that are evident at the time of data collection. However, due to the
difficulty of obtaining Ethical approval and reaching the targeted
population (police officers) during this period of the Covid-19
pandemic, the researchers decided to use secondary data collection
following a systematic method. Secondary analysis is an empirical
exercise that applies the same basic research principles
as studies utilizing primary data and has steps to be followed just
as any research method [18].
1https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/concerns-grow-after-five-cops-killed-in-kzn-in-three-weeks-a25a36d8-ecb3-4e42-a2f3-6a3f2695972a,
Accessed 16 March 2021
2https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/concerns-grow-after-five-cops-killed-in-kzn-in-three-weeks-a25a36d8-ecb3-4e42-a2f3-6a3f2695972a.
Accessed 16 March 2021
3https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/other/off-duty-cop-shot-dead-in-eersterivier/ar
AAO1IQY?ocid=msedgntp. Accessed 03 September 2021.
Using large secondary data sets provides an alternative to the
collection of primary data, often giving the researcher access to
more information than would be available in primary data sets
[19]. One of the advantages of secondary data is that it can include
any data that are examined to answer a research question other
than the question (s) for which the data were initially collected,
but also it includes access to large amounts of information,
coverage of a broad range of individuals or other entities (e.g.,
schools, hospitals), [19]. They tend to be far less costly and take
far less time to organize relatively to primary data sets. This article
used secondary data from accredited journals by the institution
for which this research was conducted, the University of KwaZulu-
Natal. These journals and books were accessed online through
web-based resources leading to the institution’s online libraries,
the South African government website, and online newspapers.
Despite that secondary data presents many opportunities
for researchers, there are still good reasons for using primary
data. One of the problems with using secondary data is the lack
of control over the framing a wording of survey items [19]. This
may mean that questions important to your study are not included
in the data. Trzesniewski et al. [20] point out that the primary
disadvantage of secondary data is the flip side of the major
advantage – the data have already been collected.
Nevertheless, to access the data, the internet was used in
a way that the researchers formulated a search strategy using
appropriate keywords, through Google scholar and Jstor.org, but
also some official websites were visited, which then allowed for
a collection of estimated relevant articles, books and other webbases
resources from which secondary data were extracted to
respond to the purpose of this study. The ethical procedures were
taken into consideration by describing articles that protect human
subjects in their analysis. Such data were de-identified before the
secondary data analysis was conducted.
The motives of police assailants range from spontaneous to
planned, simply too convoluted, and bizarre to rational. Often the
timing of police intervention plays a critical role in the offenders’
perceptions and reactions [21].
Firearms or guns in the hands of civilians are one of the root
causes of police death on and off duty. Police officers’ concern
about encounters with armed suspects is real. Zimring (2017: 57)
reports that in more than 90 per cent of killings of police officers
in the line of duty, the killer inflicted fatal injury to the officer with
a firearm. However, South Africa has had a long history with arms,
and by its first democratic elections in April 1994, it had been
identified as one of the top ten arms manufacturers in the world
[22]. Robinson [23] points out that the Apartheid government
developed a strong domestic arms industry in addition to building
and strengthening its national defense force. In addition to its
highly militarized state, Robinson [23] concedes that South Africa
was able to develop a wide range of military hardware including
nuclear bombs, rockets, launchers, grenades and various light and
heavy machine guns including pistols and assault rifles. Robinson
[23] noted that during Apartheid, the South African government
participated in the illegal manufacturing sales and purchase of
Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs) due to its isolation from
the international arena.
The Apartheid era was characterized by the accumulation
of SALWs as nationalist groups armed themselves for violent
clashes. The end of the Cold War –resulted in the influx of arms to
the African continent, resulting in their circulation within South
Africa [22]. Thus, in developing their caches, liberation armies
had access to these weapons. SALWs thus gained dominance in
the Apartheid era, continuing even after the Independence in
1994. The proliferation of these weapons in South Africa is also
due to the remnants from the Apartheid era where weapons were
accumulated and kept for private use.
However, in South Africa’s current democratic dispensation
(post-1994), the threat of SALWs continues to affect communities.
These weapons have contributed to high levels of insecurity in
communities. According to Ettang [24], there has been a rapid
increase in the use of illegal firearms to carry out violent criminal
activities throughout the country. Thus, authors like Shaw &
Gastrow [25] wrote that South Africa sits as one of the most
violent countries in the world when it comes to crimes, including
rape and armed robbery.
Beyond the apartheid remnants, these illegal firearms have
been identified as coming from three primary sources: fraud
and corruption where unfit individuals obtain firearm licenses;
guns smuggled in from different countries and the loss or theft of
firearms from licensed owners and the state (SAPS 2015/2016)
[24]. In 2017, 33 firearms went missing from two police stations
in Cape Town4. Guns have gone missing in police stations in areas
plagued with gang violence like Mitchell Plains and Bellville South
in Cape Town5. These lost and stolen firearms are used in gang
hits, taxi violence and politically motivated attacks. For example,
in KwaZulu-Natal, two police officers were arrested for selling
police-issued weapons and ammunition, including bulletproof
vests and pepper spray6. Thus, South Africa continues to face
a significant security challenge in the proliferation and illicit
trafficking of SALW [24]. The problem is highly challenging and
persistent in a way that the possession of illegal weapons has a
bearing on individual security. As long as these weapons are in the
wrong hands (including rogue security officials), they will be easily
used to perpetrate extreme levels of violence against innocent
victims [22]. The existence of firearms in the hands of civilians
is a serious threat to law enforcement officers when conducting
their operations, mostly when they attend a crime scene where
firearms were used, in most cases, they meet resistance on the
part of the suspect if this last is holding a firearm.
Perseverance is one of the causes of killing on-duty police
officers. Perseverance in the transfer of or extension of violence
as a motive of police assailants occurs when violence exists
before the arrival of a rape, an argument, or perhaps in the less
personal context of a robbery in progress [21]. The attack on the
responding officer may be a reaction to the officer’s interference
in or interruption of some act of violence, or it may be a reaction to
the assailant’s perception of the officer as siding with the original
victim – the officer serves as an additional source of frustration.
For example, in 1917, an officer on solo foot patrol was
summoned to the scene of a domestic disturbance by a widow, who
told the officer she was afraid of the man in her apartment. When
the officer walked into the apartment, the incensed boyfriend, a
professional prizefighter, grabbed the interfering officer’s club
and beat him to death. This is one of the rare cases of domestic
argument leading to a police officer killing. More typically,
perseverance in violence involves situations in which a person
is engaged in some act of violence when the officer arrives at the
scene, and the realm of violence is expanded to include the officer.
Violence is also used to seek protection by persons who
perceive the victim officer as an “instrument to impending doom”
[26]. Assailants may use violence in the course of fleeing or
escaping arrest; to prevent transport, for example, from the station
house to the jail; to avoid the discovery of incriminating evidence;
or to avoid perceived personal injury [21]. However, some police
assailants use violence to avoid or escape arrest and some try to
prevent the discovery of evidence, others react violently after the
arrest as a manifestation of displeasure with the run of events.
The motive refers to actions taken by one offender to aid or
rescue a friend, acquaintance, or fellow conspirator who is engaged
in a physical struggle with the victim officer, someone who is being
arrested, or someone subject to the threat of physical danger
[21]. Margarita [21] reports that the most common motivating
factor, present in almost two-thirds of police homicides, was the
perceived need for protection against the concrete danger posed
by the officer – usually during an escape attempt following the
commission of a violent crime. Most victim officers responding to
robberies – the largest single category of precipitant incidents –
were killed by offenders who perceived the officer as presenting
some imminent danger [21].
Similarly qualified by a small number of cases, the evidence
suggests that one-half of rapists and mentally deranged
persons killed police to avoid or retard the imposition of fearful
consequences [21]. Investigations of suspicious circumstances
accounted for more attacks in defense of other activities. Offenders
expressing contempt, hostility, or disapproval of specific policy
actions or the police function, in general, were more likely to
kill police during ambush attacks on civilians, service calls, and
routine patrols than in other incidents [21].
Initial arrival at the scene may be chaotic, depending on the
scope and nature of the crime. The presence of first responders,
law enforcement, fire or rescue, emergency medical services, and
multiple jurisdictions’ agencies has an impact on scene order [27].
Baxter Jr [28] concedes that the first officer to arrive at the scene
often finds a very chaotic, uncontrolled situation. This includes the
identification of potential victims and witnesses and identifying
suspects and involved parties. Once these individuals have been
identified, they should be separated from each other [28]. it
should be noted that the actions the first officers take or choose
not to take at the scene affect the case in many ways.
Nevertheless, police agencies use uniformed or patrol
divisions as well as detectives to process crime scenes. The
patrol officer, who is usually the first police officer to respond
to the crime scene, and the detective, who may arrive later, are
responsible for the investigation and processing of the crime
scene [29]. The first officers’ most important task at the scene
is to prevent the destruction or diminished value of potential
evidence that may lead to the apprehension of the criminal and
the ultimate resolution of the crime [29]. The responsibility of the
first uniformed officers at the scene can never be minimized. What
these officers do or do not do, whether innocent or intentional,
may have serious ramifications for the course of the investigation
[29]. Ogle & Plotkin [3] state that the safety and physical wellbeing
of officers and other individuals, in and around the crime
scene, are the first responders’ priority.
4https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/hunting-rifles-drugs-and-child-suspects-what-guns-seized-in-cape-townreveals-
20171114, Accessed on 14 Sep. 21
5https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/hunting-rifles-drugs-and-child-suspects-what-guns-seized-in-cape-townreveals-
20171114, Accessed on 14 Sep. 21
6https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/kzn-cop-arrested-for-allegedly-selling-police-guns-ammo-to-criminals-20171030,
Accessed on 14 Sep. 21
The duties of the first officer to arrive at the crime scene are
the same, no matter what his/her rank, and remain the same
regardless of the seriousness of the crime. The first responder
at the scene must assume that the criminal left clues or physical
evidence behind. The first responder’s actions or inactions must
not be allowed to destroy, change reconstruct the crime or prove
the identity of the suspect. Furthermore, the first officer must
not inadvertently add material that may mislead investigators.
In certain serious crimes, it may not be possible to preserve the
crime scene because of its location. A busy street or highway with
heavy traffic is an example of a situation in which it may not be
possible to protect a crime scene properly for a sufficient period.
Nevertheless, first responders should not approach the scene
in haste. All movements should be calm and deliberate. Officers
should expect the worst and take the position that it is better to be
overly cautious and remember the popular wisdom: if something
can go wrong, it will! Approaching the assignment with an open
mind helps an officer avoid carelessness and false moves that may
prove to be disastrous [29].
According to Fisher & Fisher [29] in today’s terrorist
atmosphere, seemingly innocent items may harbor explosive
devices. While officers should not become overly paranoid of
such possibilities, they must keep this and other possibilities of
danger in mind as they begin their investigation at a crime scene.
The eventual success of the investigation may be dependent on the
preventative and preliminary measures taken by the first officer
to arrive at the crime scene. Because police work is so tightly
connected to the community and its daily life, police work covers a
wide spectrum of very different tasks. Police officers go on patrol,
investigate, direct traffic, counsel and mediate, administer, warn,
or threaten – but the fluidity between these tasks means they are
not easily separated. Police work, in contrast to military work, is a
daily task that of its nature is never finite because it is centered on
the daily life of a community.
Police should change their strategies in attending to
cases. Criminals know how police officers operate, hence, new
approaches to police behaviors should be set, and the modus
operandi of South African Police officers must change. The
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has repeatedly warned
law enforcement officers that “the threat is from the hardened
criminal and the emotionally disturbed or insane person” [21].
This awareness should attract the attention of the police when
responding to a scene of the incident. Baxter Jr [28] admits that
one of the first actions officers should take after their initial arrival
at the scene is to deal with the suspect, provided that they are still
at the scene. According to Baxter Jr [28] “officer safety should
ALWAYS be of priority”. However, when police attend to a scene of
the incident, the first thing to find out before they even depart, is
the nature of the crime, because if the crime involved murder, then
they must get ready to incapacitate the suspect by all means. Most
often when police are called for intervention, they do not ask what
has happened or what is happening, they jump in the car and drive
toward the scene of the incident even though they never reached
the scene on time.
First, the police should familiarize themselves with the
members of the community in the area where the crime has
happened. This calls us to the community policing approach.
The community policing approach is the most important tool
which can assist police officers in approaching the crime scene
with proper guidance from community members. This allows
the law enforcement officers who are called and informed by
the community members mostly witnesses, to be aware of the
nature of the violent incident that has happened. The community
members know the whereabouts of the suspect and can cooperate
with the officers to assist in the arrest or incapacitation of the
suspect [29,30].
What is needed in this case, is a proactive approach to policing
within the communities. Since a reactive approach to policing is
not conducive to policing in a democratic political system because
it creates a particular distance between the police and the citizens
and a contact and communication exchange takes place only in
cases of emergency, a proactive form of policing and fundamental
and trustful cooperation between the police and the population is
intended to establish public security and social peace [31].
It can be agreed upon that through active and continued
communication with the residents, the police would be able to
identify the most pressing problems of the respective neighborhood
and try to cooperatively find workable and sustained solutions,
and the same residents will be the informants of the officers about
suspicious movements in the areas and if violence occurs, they
will stand as witnesses and signal the whereabouts of the suspect,
allowing police officers to take precautionary measures when
attending the scene of incidents and trying to find the suspect.
An intelligence-led approach to policing is now well
established as a key element of modern accountable police work
[32]. Intelligence-led policing involves a process for enhancing
law enforcement effectiveness and has been defined by Ratcliffe
[33] as a business model and managerial philosophy where data
analysis and crime intelligence are pivotal to an objective, decisionmaking
framework that facilitates crime and problem reduction,
disruption and prevention through strategic management and
effective enforcement strategies that target prolific and serious
offenders (89). Intelligence has a central role in guiding the
business of policing.
Intelligence-led policing is a model of a police
organization
that invites police forces to go beyond their reactive management of
events and their iterative approach to problems, and instead adopt a
proactive stance focused on the early detection of crime
and disorder [34]. It is characterized by the ability to look at the
big picture of crime in the community and to shift from a reactive
to a more proactive posture in response. The idea is to understand
the crime environment and set policing priorities, then optimize
police actions first better. This can only be possible if trained
civilian community members are part of the deal if they are tasked
to invigilate suspicious movements in the neighborhoods and if
they are the eyes of the police in the community.
Not only does intelligence-led policing intend to work in
curbing the killing of police officers, but it is deemed to be an
effective strategy for crime reduction if well applied by a trained
detective unit. This approach assists in targeting offenders
especially the targeting of active criminals through overt and
covert means; the management of crime and disorder hotspots;
the investigation of linked series of crimes and incidents; and the
application of preventive measures, including working with local
partnerships to reduce crime and disorder [35]. This intelligence
approach is used to identify who is committing crimes, how they
are committing them, and where they are committing such crimes.
This can then be used to disrupt criminals from their activity
through arrests or other methods such as making items more
difficult to steal.
The importance of intelligence-led policing is that it
typically moves to police from considering the individual crime
to considering the impact and threats of multiple crimes. An
intelligence-led philosophy is proactive in that it seeks to predict
criminal activity and pre-empt its development. It provides
actionable options on which managers can base their decisions
at all levels of policing. Intelligence by its nature is proactive and
works towards the possibility of hypothesized future events and
ways of disrupting or preventing future crimes. By putting this
approach into action, police officers will reduce their tactics of
approaching the crime scene because the intelligence-led policing
staff will be on the ground trying to figure out who the suspects
are and get the entire record of the incidents before the arrival
of law enforcement. The crime scene should be approached by
uniformed police officers on the call of ununiformed partners of
the police who might be well-trained civilian community members.
It involves frequent traffic stops, stop-and-frisk questioning
of supposedly suspicious persons, and frequent arrests for
disorderly conduct, vagrancy, and other minor offences. Barkan
[36] is of the view that such visible, aggressive policing may
reduce crime by increasing the chances that criminals get arrested
and by deterring potential criminals from offending. By reducing
incivilities such as disorderly youth and public drunkenness, it
may also prompt potential offenders to think that residents care
what happens in their neighborhoods and again deter them from
offending [37].
In a quest of eliminating the killing of the police, Ramaphosa
was addressing the families of slain police officers at the police
memorial site at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where he also
observed the annual SA Police Service Commemoration Day when
he declared the following:
“Let us transform the anger we feel, the frustration, into a
sense of determination to jointly rid our streets of all forms of
crime. To all our men and women in blue, I call on you to honor
your departed colleagues by remaining vigilant at all times and
ensuring no police officer dies in the hands of criminals7.”
This statement can only work by applying the Zero-tolerance
approach to criminal activities. According to Barkan [36], zerotolerance
or proactive policing might also work, but the mixed
results overall leave unclears the actual impact of this style of
policing. Because this style may lead to abuse of police powers
and worsen civilian-police relationships, cities and police forces
should practice it very carefully if at all.
Community policing has been increasingly promoted,
particularly in liberal democratic societies, as a suitable approach
to improve police service and effectiveness along the lines of
democratic governance, to reduce the fear of crime within the
communities and to overcome mutual distrust between the police
and the communities by enhancing police-citizen partnerships
[38].
The main idea of community policing rests on the
attempt
to leave behind purely reactive and traditional approaches to
policing. A reactive approach to policing is according to Alderson
[39] not conducive to policing in a democratic political system
because it creates a particular distance between the police and
the citizens since contact and communicative exchange takes
place only in cases of emergency, a proactive form of policing and
fundamental and trustful cooperation between the police and the
population is intended to establish public security and societal
peace [38]. In the situation of police murders, community policing
can help decrease the killing of officers in a way that community
members are very aware of the whereabouts of the criminals in
their midst. Only a good relationship with police officers can push
the members of the community to cooperate and develop a willing
attitude to provide susceptible information that might assist in
tracing the offender. This also plays the role of intelligence-led
policing in a way that the intelligence policing unit involves local
citizens of the community who works undercover. They mostly
witness crime incidents; they know the criminals and they can provide
full information about the criminals; hence they must be empowered in
terms of training but also be given communicative
tools and photographic devices that will assist them in information
gathering in due time.
7https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/national/stronger-ties-between-communities-and-police-will-help-tackle-criminality-says-cyril-ramaphosa/
ar-AAO96gd?ocid=msedgntp, Accessed on 06th September 2021.
Civic engagement usually extends to involving the public in
some way to enhance community safety. Community policing
promises to strengthen the capacity of communities to fight and
prevent crime on their own. The idea that the police and the
public are “co-producers” of safety, and that they cannot claim a
monopoly over fighting crime, predates the community policing
era. The community crime prevention movement of the 1970s was
an important precursor to community policing. It promoted the
idea that crime was not solely the responsibility of the police. The
police were quick to endorse the claim that they could not solve
crime problems without community support and assistance, for
it helped share the blame for crime rates that were rising at the
time [40].
Now, police find that they are expected to lead community
efforts. They are being called upon to take responsibility for
mobilizing individuals and organizations around crime prevention.
These efforts include neighborhood watch, citizen patrols, and
education programs stressing household target-hardening and the
rapid reporting of crime. Residents are asked to assist the police
by reporting crimes promptly when they occur and cooperating
as witnesses. Community policing often involves increases in
“transparency” in how departments respond to demands for more
information about what they do and how effective they are.
To support the idea of community involvement in the war
on criminals, Ramaphosa was addressing the families of slain
police officers at the police memorial site at the Union Buildings
in Pretoria, where he also observed the annual SA Police Service
Commemoration Day when he declared the following:
Criminals live with us in our communities. We must work
together towards strengthening community-police relations and
bring strategic stakeholders on board to bolster the efforts of the
police to bring down the levels of serious and violent crime in our
country8. Brogden & Nijhar [41]. Concede that in the community
policing context, crime prevention is regarded as not just a police
responsibility but also as an activity that should be conducted in
liaison with other agencies and more generally with the public.
When trying to find solutions to the killing of police officers,
one should seek to understand the criminal minds which are about
the worst of the worst: murderers, rapists, stalkers, kidnappers,
molesters, and predators of every sort. Avid viewers know that
these criminals can be categorized in several different ways. There
are organized and disorganized offenders. There are serial killers,
spree killers, mass murderers, and family annihilators. There
are lust or thrill killers, visionary killers, mission-based killers,
and power, or control killers. When looking at their crimes, it is
important to consider which aspects are part of their modus
operandi and which represent their signatures. In his several
books devoted to his work, Douglas & Olshaker [42] point out that
the better we can understand these human predators, the better
we as a society can protect ourselves from them and try to prevent
them from doing the things they do.
Criminals are uncompromising. In pursuing an objective, they
are heedless as to the collateral effects of their behavior. They
view other people as pawns to manipulate. Any means to achieve
the desired end is acceptable. An offender commented in all
seriousness to his probation officer, “This empathy thing; what is
in it for me?” [43]. However, it can be argued that criminals often
react to daily frustrations and disappointments in ways that differ
dramatically from the reactions of ordinary people. Hence, when
facing resistance from the suspect, police officers should be able
to incapacitate the suspect, by all means, to prevent him/her from
causing more harm than he/she has already caused.
The continuum concept also applies to anger. Some people have
a sunny disposition and seldom get angry. They maintain calmness
even in the face of major challenges and disappointments. At the
other extreme is the criminal who simmers with anger throughout
his life. When people fail to fulfil his unrealistic expectations, he
reacts as though his entire self-image is at stake. Throughout his
life, he is infuriated because people do not conform to what he
wants, and he is unable to control them.
Psychology and sociology have long advanced the view that the
criminal is basically like everyone else but becomes destructive
because he has been traumatized or stymied in fulfilling his
aspirations. A teenager “falls” in with the wrong crowd and joins
a gang because he has never had a decent family life. Or a drug
trafficker plies his trade because his skills qualify him only for
jobs that pay minimum wage. Thus, both are perceived as people
who are shaped by circumstances outside their control, ignoring
the fact that most youths from dysfunctional families do not join
gangs, and that the drug dealer’s lack of education and job skills is
a personal failure, not a societal one. In many circles, the criminal
is seen as a victim, not a victimizer. Those who hold this view go
a step further, asserting that we are all, in a sense, “criminals”
because we lie, lust, and yield to temptation. But it is absurd to
equate the rare small lie of the responsible person with the
gigantic network of lies of the criminal.
In response to whatever transpires in our lives, we
have
thoughts and make critical choices about what to do with those thoughts.
The person who is responsible thinks about consequences and has a
conscience [44]. The problem resides
in the used strategies by law enforcement when attending or
approaching the scene of the incident. Where the relationship
between people and police is damaged, both citizen security and
police effectiveness suffer.
8https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/national/stronger-ties-between-communities-and-police-will-help-tackle-criminality-says-cyril-ramaphosa/
ar-AAO96gd?ocid=msedgntp, Accessed on 06th September 2021.
One is to take steps to reduce the availability of firearms to
active offenders or individuals at high risk of offending. Policies
that are intended to have this effect are universal background
checks and barriers to straw purchases [6] (Zimring, 2017).
Sherman [45], also makes numerous policy recommendations
related to the governance and training of local police. Keeping
weapons out of the hands of the mentally ill may also be effective.
7
https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/national/stronger-ties-between-communities-and-police-will-help-tackle-criminality-says-cyril-ramaphosa/
ar-AAO96gd?ocid=msedgntp, Accessed on 06th September 2021.
One of the individual risk factors for violence most commonly
cited in studies is mental illness [46]. Severe mental illness
alone is not predictive of violence, but there is an increased risk
among those who have severe mental illness and a combination
of other factors. These include a history of past violence, juvenile
detention, physical abuse, or parents having been arrested; clinical
features of substance abuse or perceived threats (paranoia); and
dispositional factors such as age, sex, and low income [47]. Comorbid
substance abuse is a consistent finding for elevated risk of
violence among individuals with severe mental illness [48].
Individuals with mental illness may engage in acts of violence
that are motivated by factors other than the symptoms of
their illness. In a study of inter-rater reliability of a new coding
instrument for assessing the motivation for criminal acts, Penney
et al. [49] examined cases of violence by people with major mental
illnesses. In more than three-quarters of the cases (79.2%), the
acts were judged to have been motivated by symptoms of the
illness in conjunction with other motivations, such as anger,
substance abuse, or other criminal goals. Such individuals will not
hesitate to shoot at the police officers when they come to their
arrest, again, police officers must beware of such people and act
accordingly [50].
South Africa should revise its law on firearm possession by
civilians. A serious restriction should be imposed with a tough
policy on who should or not be allowed to carry a gun. The
availability of firearms in the hands of civilians is a serious problem
that the South African government must deal with urgently. All
Gun-related businesses must be closed. The government must
take responsibility for gun selling with comprehensive policies
with strict measures on who should carry a gun.
Police officers are not criminals, they are
peacemakers and
safety keepers, hence they need people protection, they need
people collaboration so that criminals can be easily identified and
dealt with accordingly. To most law-abiding citizens, explanations of
insanity or misdirected passion are sufficient and are accepted
reassuringly as the motivating factors behind police homicides;
indeed, police are supposed to protect society from lunatics and
psychopathic killers. But the public may be more alarmed to know
the “true” facts: most police homicides are not manifestations
of mental illness, but rather indicate clear calculations made by
both professional and amateur criminals who use violence against
police only to avoid apprehension and to escape from the scene of
some illegal activity.
The most dangerous person for the criminal is a police officer.
Criminals know that while in the operation of committing criminal
activities, the only fearful people are law enforcement. Hence,
criminals are ready to defend themselves during their operation
and law enforcement officers are a major threat to them because
they have the power to arrest them. Unfortunately, high-profile
criminals know that the SAPS have no right to shoot and kill, but
they can only make an arrest. They do not fear much the police,
and they are ready to kill the police for their escape and the fear
of being apprehended. This has made tough the work of law
enforcement in the country at large.
In contemporary South Africa, we cannot imagine a safe
community without the presence of the police around. Thus, our
peacekeepers (police officers) should be given more power than
criminals or potential criminals, they should be allowed to exercise
their power by all means to incapacitate the criminals. More
training is needed in terms of tactics and intelligence strategies to
combat the criminals in our midst.
This research suggests that the police legislation should be
revised, and a new policy should be crafted to give the police more
power since they are employed for the general good. As it has
been mentioned earlier in this paper, criminals should be afraid
of a police officer and not vice-versa. This can only be effective if
criminals know that the police have the right to shoot to kill in
case of resistance. The police can apply shooting not to kill but to
incapacitate the suspect in case of resistance. However, the police,
the criminal justice per see, and the government, in general, could
not control crime without the cooperation of a substantial portion
of the people. In the absence of public support, there would be
little that an army could not do better than the police. Hence,
this study appeal to all the people of South Africa to love our law
enforcement officers and to be cooperative with them by disclosing
any suspicious movement within and around our communities for
a safer South Africa for ALL.
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