South African police officers who killed a suspected
robber by shooting him in the head as he lay on the ground have handed
themselves in after a surveillance video footage released over the weekend by The Sunday Times newspaper shows
a uniformed member of the South African Police Service (SAPS) shoot the
unidentified man in the head at point blank range after he had been shot in the
shoulder and chest.
The suspect was already lying on the pavement after the
bullet to his shoulder felled him as he fled from the police, the video showed
as blood from the man’s head formed a pool on the pavement shortly after the
shots to the chest and head. “They have handed themselves in and we arrested
them, three males and a female.
‘’They are facing charges of murder, but we might add
other charges,” Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID)
spokeswoman, Grace Langa, said. Langa said the officers would remain in custody
overnight despite the officers’ pleas for the process to be expedited, so they
can appear before a Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
“They were stressed, they were requesting the
investigators to allow them appear in court earlier, but there is no special
treatment,” Langa said. South Africa remains beset by high levels of violent
crime blamed on high unemployment and the lingering effects of apartheid.
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