/ 29 June 2007

Cops get street smart

Attacks on members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) rose by 67% between 2004/05 and 2005/06, according to a former policeman and now researcher for the Institute of Security Studies, Johan Burger. But only one more policeman died in the latter period than in the former.

Burger said this indicated that the SAPS’s ”street survival” course, introduced in 2005, was bearing fruit.

The issue of police deaths was again highlighted this week by the anniversary of the ”Jeppestown massacre”, when four SAPS officers were killed by armed gangsters in Johannesburg.

Burger said SAPS members were still eight times more likely to be attacked than their United States counterparts. But while there had been 1 274 attacks on policemen in 2004/05 – up from 721 the previous year – the number of deaths per year had remained stable at 95 and 94 respectively.

Burger and David Bruce, of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) ascribed this to the new street-survival course. ”Figures suggest a dramatic decrease [in police killings], suggesting that the measures have been a success,” Bruce said.

The programme is specifically designed to prevent the killing of police officers, through such measures as advanced firearm training, general fitness and education on issues such as the value of wearing a bullet-proof jacket.

”Many policemen don’t like using jackets because they’re uncomfortable,” Burger said. ”More importantly, the course also teaches them how to make quick decisions in dangerous situations.”

Since 2005 all new police recruits have automatically participated in the course, but Burger said most of the 130 000 active police members had not received the training.

Since July last year police have also been required to attend quarterly exercises in shooting, as well as annual firearm assessments and a short course based on high-risk scenarios.

The CSVR report suggests that most police are killed when they are off duty, often for their weapons. But the SAPS says the real reason is that off-duty officers are less vigilant and less likely to wear bullet-proof vests.

When a potentially dangerous situation arises, like the Jeppestown standoff, police procedure dictated that a special task force or special intervention should be brought in, Burger explained.

”The Jeppestown officers did not follow procedure 100%,” he said. ”Either that or they underestimated how dangerous the house was and how many armed suspects it held.”

He said it was unclear why attacks against policemen rose so dramatically last year. ”Some attributed it to the security strike, others to the escalation in crime and resulting police action, which put more policeman in the line of fire.”

Interviewed by Unisa’s Criminal Justice School two years ago, jailed police killers said were not scared of the police ”because they know that they shoot badly and have inferior firepower”.

 

AP