“This is not Manchester or Los Angeles, this is bloody Malaysia”
Cry “This is not Manchester or Los Angeles, this is bloody Malaysia” finds resonance in the country and reflects gravity of crisis of public confidence in police professionalism
Lim Kit Siang
“Hisham: We’ll be fair – Home Minister promises a thorough investigation” and “No cover-up in probe, says IGP” are two headlines in the Star today on the trigger-happy “shoot-to-kill” police killing of 14-year-old student Aminulrasyid Hamzah in the early hours of Monday morning, some 100 metres from his Shah Alam Section 11 house to assure the Malaysian public of the action being taken by the authorities.
Both the Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan can shout from the rooftops but the duo will not be able to inspire confidence whether the aggrieved family or the outraged Malaysian public that there would be a thorough, independent and professional investigation into the heinous incident causing the death of a 14-year-old Form III student in Shah Alam.
The ham-fisted and unwarranted “stern warning” by the Selangor Police Chief Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar to politicians and the public not to make statements or to speculate on the incident has the unintended effect of further undermining public confidence in police integrity and professionalism.
Khalid is clearly behind-times as he does not realize that we are in the era of democratic and accountable policing, and not living in a police state where no questions should be asked about the police!
In fact, an independent and professional investigation into the Aminulrasyid police killing should include an investigation why Khalid had come out with an official police version which has been immediately challenged by the family, the neighbourhood and an eyewitness?
For instance, Khalid alleged that Aminul, who was driving, had suddenly reversed the car and tried to ram into the police personnel while his companion “had exited and was able to escape”.
The family had challenged this version, denying that Aminul tried to reverse the car to jam the police personnel and that Aminul had died when he was shot in the back of the head causing the car to crash into a tree, retaining wall and into a drain some 100 metres from his house.
Khalid alleged that the police found a long machete in the car driven by Aminul, which had been denied by Aminul’s mother, Norsiah Mohamad, saying that the car belonged to one of Aminul’s married sisters and contained shoes and not a machete.
Will Khalid resign as Selangor Chief Police Officer and personally apologise to the aggrieved family if the official police version is proven to be untrue?
The aggrieved family and the immediate Shah Alam neighbourhood are rightly outraged at the circumstances of the police killing of 14-year-old student Aminulrasyhid as if he is a big-time gangster, causing one of the neighbours to exclaim: “This is not Manchester or Los Angeles, this is bloody Malaysia”!
This heart-felt cry “This is not Manchester or Los Angeles, this is bloody Malaysia” has found resonance and reverberation in the breasts of all fathers and mothers throughout the country and reflects the gravity of the crisis of public confidence in police professionalism.
