Licence to kill

Hello, good morning and good night to all, where ever time zone you are in.

It’s been a rainy week in skudai right now; in fact it’s raining at the moment I write this post. After months of hot days we skudai people certainly deserve a nice chilled environment for once. Ahh, what a nice feeling to be woken up with cool air in your lungs. Refreshing indeed.

So postings are not as frequent as I was hoping, with a lot of assignments and projects, but I promised myself to write once a while so for today I would like to comment on the recent article I read on police violence.

I very much condemn police violence and in fact, I hate it very much. Not enough that police reputation are downgraded with reports of bribery and such, police violence is very much common in our beloved country, Malaysia. It made the highlights during street protests and demos. I personally made aware of this during Anwar’s Reformasi era 1998. As I follow the news and such, it made me loathe the fact that how people who try to organize a peaceful march can get seriously involved in police violence.

But that is another case. The issue that I’m trying to focus here is about the act of police shoot-to-kill conduct; ethical? Or just plain emotional. First read this article in The Nut Graph titled “Are the police shooting to kill?”

If there were a discussion on the police matters, I would certainly bash the whole lot. There’s no doubt about it. But when it comes to this, I just had to be in defense with the police. I will now start with my points

1. The police force, same as the military, is trained with strict regimental codes and conduct. Their everyday life are to obey orders and such, every action of the police are basically either by directly from the upper echelon officers or by the BOOK

2. When I mean the book, I mean like some sort of manual, guide or textbook. Every policeman will follow this doctrine to the details. Well this is very subjective as everyone has their own instinct to act as they wish to. But basically, every personnel will follow this code.

3. In terms of shooting, it is standard procedure to gun down an offensive armed suspect. Simple. If a suspect is in any way possess anything that can inflict harm in anyway be it firearms or sharp objects, and have intention to harm or kill the policeman, then a police may use a firearm to stop that suspect.

4. Yes of course, the policeman must use every means necessary before using a firearm like restraining orders and such, self defense mode and the use of non violent conduct.

5. "In the limited circumstances where shootings are warranted by law, suspects could be shot in the legs or arms and captured alive,"

6. But tell me bradder. What you will do when a suspect is running to you, flailing a parang violently at you? What about a suspect with guns, with all the attention shooting at you? Of course you will have to start to shoot back!

7. “Oh yeah, why didn’t the policeman aim for their hand or legs. Training tak cukup ka?” Oi bradder! You think it’s a walk in the park to aim a moving target let alone small areas like legs and hand? Furthermore, at an intense situation like that, you’ll need to act in a split second. Ever tried firing a gun before? Please don’t watch too many action movies ok? Bloody idiot.

8. “The police could consider other means of neutralising suspects, such as by using stun guns, tranquiliser shots or tear gas that are not lethal.”

9. Adoooi bro. Taser guns? First of all Malaysian police force did not yet fully apply to use tasers. Yes we bought them a couple units not long ago. But it is not fully practiced yet. You think we are a goddamn rich country like USA nk bgi sme personnel srg satu tasers? Gaji polis pn tak cukup ingat kerajaan bnyk duit nk bli?

So for me, I applaud the police for doing their good job in apprehending those criminals. Humans rights or not, they are all a waste of life after all. Kecik2 tanak mampos, dah besa mnyusah kan org. Mmg patut kne tembak pn.

But then again, yes “an inquest must be held to determine whether the police made any efforts to apprehend suspects alive. In the long run, a coroner's court should be set up to investigate all deaths involving the police.”  There should be check and balance for this to avoid such abuse of power.

At the end of the day, It’s all a matter of fixing the system right?