Editors Comment: Cut the good cops some slack

WHEN government delivery systems fail and angry citizens take to the streets burning, looting and even killing innocent people, the men in blue have to take the front line to restore law and order. It is their job and we demand they execute it.

But it is impossible to describe to anyone who has not found themselves face-to-face with an out-of-control crowd in mass hypnotic state, how thin the line is between containment and bloody violence.

Police officers are not super human beings. It takes great courage to soldier on when your daily job involves putting your life at risk.

While they are (hopefully) adequately trained to face any eventuality and remain steadfast and emotionally cool no matter the intensity of any showdown, every policeman or -woman, like all of us, fear death – especially if it might be brutal at the hands of mindless mobs running amok with all manner of blades, skull-crushing rocks and the dreaded burning tyres.

This is when wrong decisions can spark developments with ghastly and regrettable consequences.

At best the police can hope for each incident to be viewed in context, but unfortunately for them, the few mavericks in their ranks guilty of dragging arrested persons behind police vans, opening fire on unarmed citizens, accepting bribes and other such stupidities and incompetence, simple serve to further fuel public perception that the SAPS in general is ineffective to the core.

Sadly, the isolated high-profile mishaps so dominate the media, public and political debates, that the incredible good work the majority of honest and competent police members are doing every day, are filed in the obscurity box.

Reading Monday’s Zululand Observer serves as an example. Police closed down a shop printing false certificates in Empangeni, busted a drug operation in eSikhaleni, trapped mussel smugglers at Nhlabane and assisted Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife to shut down a massive fish poaching operation at False Bay. Not forgetting that two young cops were killed in the line of duty at KwaDukuza.

So, despite the overwhelming negativity about their profession, good policemen and -women are still getting on with the job of protecting and serving.

For that we salute them