Cop killings 'barely noticed'
2001-07-22 18:56
Johannesburg - More than 62 police officers were murdered in South Africa in the first five months of this year, in a society which has become indifferent to news of their killing, Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi said.
"In many other countries the murder of a police official is
greeted by outrage from the community, and life in the
underworld becomes unbearable until the culprit is arrested,"
Selebi said in a statement on Sunday.
"But in South Africa it has become so mundane that it is
barely noticed by the public," he added after a memorial
service for his fallen colleagues at the Union Buildings in
Pretoria.
Last year, 185 police were murdered - most of them here, and in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. In 1999, 204 police were killed.
Selebi called on communities and members of the criminal
justice system to ensure their killers were brought to justice
and "removed from the streets of our country for the rest of
their lives".