Another Bay cop gunned down
Shooting of second policeman within days in Motherwell spurs calls to bring back death penalty
Another police officer has been shot dead in Motherwell.
Sergeant Khayalethu Mbonomnyama, 42, was gunned down outside a popular shisanyama in Mgwalana Street on Sunday while sitting in his car.
The shooting, just days after a court orderly was killed in the area, has sparked calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty.
Mbonomnyama, who hails from Mthatha and was stationed at the Swartkops Rapid Response Unit, was waiting in his car — a red Volkswagen Polo GTI — for meat he had ordered at Aya’s Lounge when two armed men opened fire.
“He [Mbonomnyama] came in and ordered the meat, he then waited in his car for one of the tavern workers to take him the meat,” an eyewitness said yesterday.
“His girlfriend was in the passenger seat.” Another eyewitness said Mbonomnyama’s girlfriend was hysterical and shouted for help.
The tavern owner said though Aya’s Lounge had surveillance cameras, none of them were working at the time.
At Mbonomnyama’s house in Coega Village, where he lives with his girlfriend, no-one was home yesterday morning.
Neighbours described him as quiet, approachable, neat and respectful. Hawks spokesperson Captain Yolisa Mgolodela said the motive for the shooting was not yet known.
Mbonomnyama was not on duty at the time of the shooting.
On Wednesday last week, 41-year-old court orderly Sergeant Mario Nel was killed with his own service pistol while inside the Motherwell court.
The alleged murderer,
Andile Nyoka, 26, was arrested a short distance away the same day and appeared briefly in court on Friday.
Nyoka indicated that he did not intend applying for bail and the case was postponed to June 9.
High-ranking politicians, police officials and other dignitaries visited Nel’s grieving family at the weekend to offer their condolences.
Community safety MEC Xolile Nqatha, provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nomthetheleli Mene, deputy provincial commissioner Major-General Thandiswa Kupiso, Nelson Mandela Bay district commissioner MajorGeneral Vuyisile Ncata and station commanders in the district were among those who visited the family in Bethelsdorp on Saturday.
Anti-crime activist Yusuf Abramjee said capital punishment would deter violent criminals.
“In other countries, capital punishment does serve as a deterrent,” Abramjee said.
“More and more police officials are targeted, especially for their firearms — this is of serious concern and I think the law needs to be reviewed.”
Civil rights organisation and police watchdog Action Society’s Ian Cameron said the death penalty, which had been repealed just after the arrival of democracy in 1994, should be brought back.
“In principle, capital punishment should be reinstated, it will be a powerful tool to end such heinous crimes,” Cameron said.
“It will be difficult to bring it back, [however], I mean our police units have been hijacked by criminals and we don’t have the resources.”
Crime-fighting activist Hanif Loonat said he was shocked by the shooting of Mbonomnyama and the government should reconsider the abolition of the death penalty.
“It looks like we won’t win this war so they should bring back the death penalty because
the sentencing that we get today doesn’t move criminals, it motivates them,” Loonat said.
“The bail and parole systems are also not working properly, something needs to be done.”
He said it was shocking to note how many police officers were killed in the Eastern Cape.
“There are two ways that they kill the cops; the one is when they, the officers, are doing their job and try to arrest criminals.
“The second is their own colleagues within their system who realise that they can’t afford to have them around when they [fellow officers] are involved in crime.”
AfriForum’s Ernst Roets said the non-government organisation believed capital punishment would work if applied correctly.
“We are concerned that this will not be applied consistently,” Roets said.
“It’s a good idea and it will curb these police killings and farm murders, but the penalty will not be applied equally, just or fair.”
Another anti-crime activist, Eldred de Klerk, echoed international relations deputy minister Candith MashegoDlamini’s views, expressed at the UN Human Rights Council in February, that the death penalty was not the answer.
“We as a constitutional democracy took a deliberate decision to do away with the death penalty,” he said.
“And we did this in the belief that we wanted to grow a rights-based culture of dignity, quality of life and communal norms and values.
“Today, our political economy and related policies that underpin super-profits, capital flight and rampant corruption lie at the heart of our social, political and development vulnerabilities.
“How is the bringing back of the death penalty going to correct this?”