Cops Shot Boy

Malaysian Insider’s headline today: Neighbours’ anger over trigger-happy cops.
link

This is not the first instance events like these happens. My father has spoken of this before. He has a friend who was driving during around 7pm one day. The few moments before the sun sets is the time where the eyesight at its most kaput—it’s not totally dark, but it’s not exactly bright either.

This old friend of my dad was speeding along on the road. Due to the bad lighting, he didn’t notice a police road block until it was too late. He couldn’t stop his car in time, and drove past the road block. The police fired a warning shot into the air. Scared the pants out of that old fella. The police later told him that if he had continued to drive, they would’ve shot him without double guessing.

And from this scenario, we can easy postulate that similar unfortunate events of death/manslaughter have happened before. And will continue to occur.

So what happens when someone is shot dead but the person is not a criminal? He/she was merely being a careless driver who missed road block.

Easy: the police simply plants evidence of violence in your car. Dump an old pistol from previous crime scenes or parang in the car boot or something. The promptly claim that you are a wanted criminal involved in the recent XXX chain of murder/robbery.

I would go so far as to hypothesize that the poor boy, Aminulrasyid Amzah, was just having some fun driving his sister’s car in the neighbourhood. Come on, most of us have done that before. And when he saw a police road block, he panicked. Instead of braking, he stepped on the accelerator. Perfect scenario for an unfortunate death.

So whose fault is it? I’d say the police. They seems to be too trigger happy. What happened to the policy of ‘don’t fire unless fired upon’?

However, lets think from the policemen’s point of view. They are in an unpredictable situation, with minimal information at that time. Shoot to save yourself, or wait to get shot first? I understand why they did it, but I certainly DO NOT THINK THIS IS RIGHT! There is currently no independent police commission/agency that are keeping an eye on the police’s actions.

So what’s the point of this post? Is it to rant about our failed police system? Being a devil’s advocate for the police? A symphathy post for Aminulrasyid Amzah’s family?
It is all of the above. But the most important point of all: ALWAYS TOTALLY ABSOLUTELY STOP AT A POLICE ROAD BLOCK IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!

Yours Sincerely,
thePOliceman