LAST week’s column did rub a few people up the wrong way though it surely wasn’t my intention. There are some who felt that I gave the cops too much slack on the spike issue.
Well, as it later turned out, the police did announce the suspension of the use of spikes because they were a threat to life and limb. As an added bonus the injured passengers are suing the breeches off the police. So there you are! Classic poetic justice.
As we look back on this tragic saga, I just have to share with you what one particular irate reader wrote to me venting his spleen.
Jay Bafana was livid, nay, pissed off with my pedestrian treatment of the issue and he wanted me to be fully aware of this on my Facebook link to last week’s column.
I intend to quote him verbatim on this: “Lenox Mhlanga, so you mean the police were right by throwing spikes and endangering the lives of passengers and the driver? Is that responsible? Two wrongs don’t make a right. The police must uphold the law and rights of people and their conduct must not even be compared to a driver that was supposedly endangering innocent lives.
“You talk about beating the driver? No one must be beaten. If the driver is a suspected criminal, why not use safe ways of capturing him and bringing him to the courts instead of injuring passengers? The act of injury was not caused by the driver Lenox Mhlanga.
“The facts are that the police must prevent underage drivers from driving kombis. The law has clear age restrictions and that cannot be done by throwing spikes at a moving vehicle. The police must prevent kombi drivers from loading passengers at undesignated points and that cannot be done by throwing spikes at moving vehicles. The police make sure that all kombis that are unregistered are not operating and that cannot be done by throwing spikes at a moving vehicle.
“The police must not endanger any vehicle occupant by throwing spikes regardless that of a driver having defied police orders on more than three accessions and evaded two roadblocks bedu we!
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“The police must not endanger the lives of passengers even if the driver is recklessly driving and speeding. There are safer ways of arresting such a driver.
“He should have stopped when police threw spikes on the road! (Lenox Mhlanga please!) Abruptly stopping because objects are thrown at a moving vehicle is even more dangerous. And the beating, why should any criminal be beaten at this day and age bedu we?”
I responded: “I said ‘if’ and not that he should be beaten. Secondly, at no point did I justify throwing of spikes. I was pointing out that people seem to have been carried away with condemning the police when the actual culprit got sympathy when he started the chain of events that led to the accident.
“It’s called playing the devil’s advocate. Let us look at both sides of the case — is what I was implying. By the way, the passengers are said to have tried to get the driver to stop and let them off and he ignored their calls.
Jay Bafana then went for the jugular: “Lenox Mhlanga, the kombi driver did not start any chain of events. His misdemeanours did not warrant objects violently thrown at his kombi. The chain is a fallacy, there is no chain at all. It’s irrelevant if the passengers asked the underage driver to stop.
“The driver is illegal, he is a criminal so its strange how you try to equate the conduct of a police officer throwing spikes at a moving vehicle thus endangering lives and limbs of all kombi occupants with the conduct of a criminal who is not intending to obey the law.
“The police have the responsibility to protect the lives and limbs of passengers regardless of the fact that he is a criminal. The conduct of the police must always be above that of the illegal driver. But Lenox, would you say that throwing objects under moving vehicles is warranted?
“You sound like you are justifying if not trivialising the throwing of spikes based on what you call ‘the facts of the matter.’
Yes, you do, Lenox, by silently not condemning the throwing of objects that caused injuries and the threat to lives, while conspicuously depicting what you call facts in your article. Look at what happened now? If there was beating as you say Lenox, why would there be the possibility of a beating in this equation? What happened to justice in that ‘if’?
“Humans are already violated with a threat to their lives and you start introducing the possibility of a beating. Hayikhona, where is the morality here? It’s a pity that your article does not help us nor the police for that matter . . .”
And my nemesis Jay Bafana went on and on and on pitch forking every defence and explanation I threw at him. All I can say is kuzwakele fethu! I hear you!
Lenox Mhlanga is a social commentator
