PLEASE MR. POLICEMAN – SHOOT THE RIGHT TARGET

It has taken me quite a while to pen this article relating to the death of 15 year old school boy Aminulrasyid Amzah who was shot by a policeman in the early hours of Monday 26 May in Shah Alam. The reason is simply because I am a bit dumb founded at the way our policeman are reacting these days, and it becomes obvious to me that there is something seriously wrong with the training of our policeman. I now begin to fear that I too can be shot at anytime, for any reason that the police may find it necessary to shot me. For a moment I thought I was in Zimbabwe or in some forsaken African state, but it wasn’t to be. Thanks,I am still in Malaysia and seeing this ‘freelance sharp shooter’ who is a government employee so willingly use his gun to stop a car really frightens me. Isn’t there any other way to stop a fleeing car, or is shooting the car the only way to stop a car? Isn’t there a thing called ‘the use of minimum force’ by way of warning shots, before a policeman ‘goes for the kill’?

I thought our policemen are equipped with high speed cars and motorcycles. And even if they are on low powered motorcycles, they have the means to call for reinforcement. Isn’t that the way they are trained?

I simply could not fathom why a gun had to be used to stop a car. If it was a fleeing car that was trying to get away from the policeman, then the policeman wasn’t in any danger of being rammed by the car. And neither was the policeman in danger of being shot, or attacked with a parang, or has already being shot by someone from the fleeing car. Neither of these things happened, and yet the policeman thought that using the gun was the best option.

Now, if the policeman were to say that he only intended to shot the car tyres to disable the car, then he is a bad shot, and he requires many more hours of training at the shooting range. And if indeed he was a poor shooter, than I think he should not have been given a gun, and the police must accept blame for allowing a poor shooter to be equipped with a gun. I now wonder when did the policeman last undergo a shooting practice?

I have handled guns before, but I must confess that I am a poor shot. Guns are not easy to use, but by virtue that a gun is the personal weapon of a policeman, then they must be experts at handling a gun and engaging a target at the right point of aim. Since, there have been numerous cases of shooting by policeman that resulted in death, I presume then that their training calls for ‘one shot one kill’ type of training. This was what was told to me by a UTK friend of mine, who does not believe in a second shot kill. In the case of the UTK, I can fully understand their reasoning because the danger to their lives is real.

The IGP’s statement following the incident when he said that “if you do not want the police to enforce the law, then say so. I will tell my men to not take any action, including conduct inspection on vehicles or arrest Mat Rempits who ride without licenses” is laughable. Such words coming from the IGP is unbecoming and makes the entire force a laughing stock. I would like to suggest that the IGP goes for a public relations course. But on second thought, it is a bit too late for him, because he has just a few months left before he retires from the force.

Let us hope that this will be the last time that we hear of a shooting of a school boy. The policeman has many other targets to shoot, like robbers, murders and kidnappers, but certainly not another school boy.


CRUSADE AGAINST CORRUPTION