The rise in the killing of violent suspects - especially in KZN and most recently in Khayelitsha, Cape Town - is big news with many questioning the use of lethal force by the police.
But, as a (mostly) law-abiding South African, I find it difficult not to agree with KZN Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi when he says we are at war.
He recently told the attendees of a KZN crime prevention summit that not only are the police dealing with criminals who steal, but criminals who kill. "We are at war. When you take the war to the criminals as the police, the experts must give us space. This is a battleground and we are fighting; we are not negotiating," Mkhwanazi said.
And you cannot fault his statement.
The police are up against criminals wielding AK47s, assault rifles, explosives and even rockets to attain their evil gains in their never-ending, ravenous lust for easy money and the so-called high life.
Tragically, in some cases where violent criminals have been killed, innocent bystanders have also lost their lives. But in a country at war, innocent civilians sometimes end up paying the highest price.
We can only hope that the police will take every precaution to prevent unnecessary loss of life as they take on barbaric criminals.
Bear in mind that these criminal syndicates have no qualms shooting anyone of any age to death, so war it is - a war against enemies who do not give a rat's ass about the rules of combat. These callous killers are only too eager to commit the most atrocious crimes - in the process destroying anything and anyone who gets in the way.
So consider this: How can you ever win a match if the referee only holds your side to the rules of the game, while the other team is allowed to play viciously dirty? It’s a matter of impossibility.
Yes, it is a complex and dangerous issue, because we also have corrupt, rogue elements in the police who need to be rooted out. Should these rotten cops get the upper hand and wield the power and guns, we are in big trouble.
Nobody has the answers, but we live in an abnormal society where cash-in-transit robbers, kidnappers, hitmen, gang lords, extortionists, the construction mafia and other blood-thirsty criminal syndicates are going all-out to take what isn't theirs: Our livelihoods and our lives.
