Debate continues as 31 suspects killed in shoot-outs with KZN cops since April

In recent months, KwaZulu-Natal has experienced an increase in fatal confrontations between police and suspected criminals, with more than 31 deaths reported in the past three months.

This surge has heightened scrutiny of police in KwaZulu-Natal and sparked a debate about the use of force by police.

During the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government social crime prevention summit, provincial police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi offered a grim overview of the province's crime situation.

“If we are not taking this seriously, we are facing this problem. We cannot fight criminals by negotiating with them. We have to be aggressive with them, bold when we arrest them and we have been successful in doing that. And when they are incarcerated there must be hard penalties coming out of the courts and they must be sent away for long [periods],” said Mkhwanazi.

Mkhwanazi expressed concern over the high murder rate in KwaZulu-Natal.

“KwaZulu-Natal's biggest worry for us is murders. If we are not number one, we are beaten by Gauteng.”

He suggested KwaZulu-Natal might be the “murder capital of this country”, citing historical data showing that the province has long had the highest number of police-involved killings.

Crime statistics paint a stark picture. In the first three months of 2023, KwaZulu-Natal reported 1,649 murder cases, with Inanda, Umlazi and KwaMashu among the worst affected areas.

Inanda was noted as the “murder capital of South Africa”, recording 93 killings, followed by Umlazi with 59 and KwaMashu with 52. Sexual assault cases also remain high, though there has been a decline in reported rapes in Umlazi and Inanda.

KwaZulu-Natal has consistently had the country's worst crime statistics, including for burglary and robbery with aggravating circumstances. In the 2014/2015 financial year the province accounted for 3,800 out of 17,000 murder cases in South Africa.

David Bruce, a researcher, commented on the high rate of police-involved shootings in KwaZulu-Natal in a panel discussion on Newzroom Afrika, saying, “What's noteworthy about this particular spate of killings is that in some ways it isn't necessarily particularly exceptional.”

He noted that KwaZulu-Natal has historically always had the highest number of police-involved killings, reflecting the province's high levels of violence and systemic issues within the criminal justice system.

Lawyers for Human Rights' Wayne Ncube also weighed in on the conversation and emphasised the importance of context in evaluating police actions.

“Any time where you have people who are killed it is a cause for concern. KwaZulu-Natal has been a cause for concern for well over a decade,” said Ncube.

Ipid spokesperson Phaladi Shuping discussed the legal framework governing use of force by police. “The law makes provision for the police to use force,” Shuping said, emphasising that Ipid's role was to investigate whether police actions were within legal parameters.

“We have to investigate that incident to make a determination as to whether the police acted within the parameters of the law, or did they act outside the law,” Shuping said. 

Ncube said the police's mandate should not mean they have a free licence to “just kill whoever they want”. 

“I think what we lack are proper oversight mechanisms, proper accountability mechanisms and proper training of law enforcement in general to de-escalate situations, which is obviously a whole different topic which could take a lot of time,” he said.

He argued that while high violence levels might necessitate the use of force, that should not always be the case.

“There should be a set standard in terms of how we deal with things, but we also have to understand the context in which police operate with so many societal problems, and there are probably a lot of instances where the prescribed use of force might be necessary to meet that violence.”

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