Gunning Police

I have been reading the issue surrounding the shooting of a local teenager, which resulted in his death in the arms of his friend, by our local police. The story then became extremely convoluted and nobody really knows what the truth but everyone sort of knows what most likely happened.

Regardless of what everyone says, I personally think that the police were wrong.

There are rules and procedures that need to be followed, not just for a police discharging his weapon, but even for a police to take it out of the holster. Police are given the authority to carry deadly firearms but with that authority comes the implicit trust that they will not discharge the weapons unnecessarily at unarmed boys.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

Regardless of what the child may or may not have done, killing him was not the right thing to do. If he tried to run down the policemen as they claimed, the big question then becomes what the police were doing out of their car. Anyone who has watched any cop shows on TV knows that the standard thing to do is to stand behind your car and demand that the suspect step out of the car with his hands in the air, in order to eliminate any potential threat.

I agree that the police have a right to defend themselves and that the right sometimes means that they need to pull out their firearms and shoot someone with deadly force. However, the use of deadly force is rarely required especially in a country like Malaysia where regular civilians are rarely armed with knives, much less guns.

The use of force has to be proportional to the threat – otherwise it is an abuse.