South African Police Open Fire on Rioting Miners

Um......

Only heard about this now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/aug/16/south-african-police-miners-lonmin
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-17/south-africa-miners-killed/4204582?section=business

 

Warning, disturbing:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19289392

So ****ed up. Wish I hadn't watched that now

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19301690

 

Wow, 60 miners with one pistol and machetes against 100 policemen with automatic rifles is never going to end well, that is horrendous.

It does make you wonder how much training comes into it when someone opens fire and the collective join in, or if it is just a mixture of fear or hate and adrenalin. Fight or flight at its worst.

 

Sadly, SA is a very violent country, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of that violence spilled over into the police.

For instance, my father's best friend was a diamond mine owner, and shared it alongside his brother, which side eventually became passed down to his nephew. One day, his nephew decides to kill him, one bullet to the head. His punishment - 3yrs in jail. His gain - the entire diamond mine. The police were beyond useless, not really caring, and leaving his wife to clean up the blood.

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Holy **** they just start blazing, from the sound of that you're talking several hundred or maybe a thousand or more rounds going off.

It says in the report that the miners have 'weapons out and already used', if this is so the nerves of the police can potentially be understood but certainly not condoned. The lack of discipline shown in this is horrendous, one opens fire and the others just pile on, hell there's even one of their own guys in the firing line for christs sake.

Sadly though I can't see any other way that could have ended. If, for example, the one allegedly brandishing the stolen pistol had been taken out by himself it's conceivable (but probably certain) that the crowd would have become incensed and attacked anyway. If the police hadn't fired at all you could be looking at dead cops since it appears that the group was already wound up from water cannon and tear gas, they were moving with a purpose from the little you see of them.

Just a generally ****ed up situation with no real possibility of peaceful resolution outside of giving them what they want which is looking even less likely with incidents like this.

 

If the police did not fire against them then the police would be dead.

 

What you must understand in a situation like that is that you have a bunch of guys running at you with machetes and sticks. It was one policeman who fired in panic and the rest joined because they thought they were being fired upon.

 

Listen to the 1st part. It says 10 people killed before this, some of whom were police.

You have a pissed off group charging at you, that has already commited acts of violence, armed with varying weapons that you can see (machetes, asegais, pangas, knobkirries, and pistol- that was taken from a cop earlier) and more than likely have others hidden (it is VERY easy and cheap to get a hold of a gun in Africa, legally or otherwise).

Damn right they should open fire. What sounds like a massive volley, is one. I count around 50 cops in that firing line, facing off the lead element of around 3000 (other articles push it to 5000) miners (many of which arent even in the country legally, i'll bet)

 

Oh no don't get me wrong, I do agree with what's being said here, I'm just trying to think of ay way it might have been avoided but it's impossible.

I actually think that this incident itself might help to stop more violence since it's now clear (whether intentional or not) that the police aren't going to take any more **** and will put people the **** down if threatened. Even if they're the most angry violent mob in the world they're going to really think twice before having a go again.

 

What wonders me here is that the cops are armed for a battle, no a riot.

It may be just that they don't have better equipment but wouldn't a shield stick and helmet be more normal in a case like this, isn't full automatic assault rifles a bit, well overkill. (no pun intended)

Sure it is hard to judge the situation from the footage but the cops of SA are in general underpaid, under educated, under supplied, badly disciplined and generally quite corrupt so I have a hard time imaging how this was to end in a good way.

 

...

 

Till you have been in those situations best not to take to much what the reporters say. I remember in the riots there driving in a cassper vehicle with reporters with there cameras down whilst we were been shot at and having petrol bombs thrown at us. The minute we don't back with teargas and but shot they lifted there cameras.

 

Overkill? Absolutely not. Under trained? Perhaps.

They are massively outnumbered and know better than almost anyone how grotesquely violent these people can be. They know that if they wandered in with shields and sticks the enemy would be less intimidated and respond with much more aggression. In a situation like this a show of force is the best preliminary action to a full on fire fight. The bodies on the floor are much closer than the average person there, showing that they have obviously made a run for the Police in some way shape or form and posed a direct threat. In that situation a threat has to be taken down as quickly as possible.

 

So the British police would have been in their right if they had shot the protesters last year, would it have been all right for the police to gun down any angry mob they encounter.

Sorry but there are a reason why the police here usually don't use assault rifles at a riot despite being outnumbered and littered with molotov cocktails, rocks, fireworks and more, all of which are lethal weapons.

I do not try to judge this individual situation as there really are too little information, but as a rule there should be no situation where the police need anything more than clubs, shields, tear-gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, and if things really are hard their service pistols. If there really are need for assault rifles we are no longer talking about a riot but a civil war.

Again I would not be surprised if these cops didn't have proper riot control equipment but only rifles and I do not exactly know how things went up to what we see on the film, so too many variables there.

 

So why does every force have a large group of Officers that drive around on a daily basis with assault rifles, shotguns, pistols and sniper rifles? Oh and often a variety of explosives. Many situations require many different responses.

I'd love to see someone run at a man with an assault rifle with a 'club' and shield.

 

What forces ? normal officers in Europe don't have of those things with them on a daily basis, only specialist SWAT teams have that and they are never used for riot control.

I believe that is what happened in that video, they recovered one pistol, and many dead civilians.

 

Don't understand why the police didn't stay home, wasn't like they were doing damage, the area looks empty lol

 

All sides of this really have been working towards this tragic outcome. Charging down armed police intent on doing them damage is only going to get you killed, by the time the situation got to this level it has already escalated to the point where it can not end well for either side. Had the police not opened fire we'd be talking about 30 dead police.

Why the police were sent into deal with a labour dispute is the real issue here and ultimately what caused the escalation.

 

Wouldn't it be convenient to believe so?

 

The riots last year consisted of individuals and numerous small groups, none of which were armed with machetes and throwing spears; big difference compared to a 3000-5000 strong crowd who are charging the small number of police. The UK rioters were looting and damaging property, but they were not seeking to engage in a fight with police as such.

The key thing here is the concentrated mass of heavily armed rioters looking for a fight- I imagine if such a situation occurred in the UK then armed units would be deployed, but since this isn't a lawless society ( close enough... ) our rioters and police are much better behaved and trained to deal with different levels of violence in an appropriate manner...