04/20/24
May 25, 2004
Speaking of shooting percentages: A former member of South Africa's Springbok rugby team has been charged with murder after mistaking his daughter for a car thief and shooting her in the family's driveway. Johannesburg must be one rough town for the guy to have such an itchy trigger finger.
Oh Stan - it isn't the first time someone mistakenly shot someone else. I had a friend in Johannesburg and he said that the crime there is insane.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 11:40 AM on May 25, 2004
I had a friend get his shirt literally ripped off his person as he ran away from muggers a few years back in Johannesburg. fyi, i wasn't going for funny ha ha some dude shot his daughter. I was going for the simple connection to the main idea of 'shooting'....kind of an uncomfortable segue, I know.
posted by garfield at 12:05 PM on May 25, 2004
Nothing I've ever heard about Johannesburg paints it as a safe place. The carjacking capital of the world, if I remember correctly..
posted by blarp at 01:12 PM on May 25, 2004
Regardless of how dangerous the place is, firing out a window of your house to protect a car is crazy. Without knowing anything about the law of his country, he ought to answer in court for using lethal force when he was in no personal danger.
posted by rcade at 01:17 PM on May 25, 2004
It's a crazy place, I can't believe it has been awarded the football world cup. Andrew Hall, a South African cricketer of distinction, has been shot twice!
posted by Fat Buddha at 01:34 PM on May 25, 2004
Well rcade - I think that's kind of the problem. Call the cops and they'll show up and take the car, too. Purely speculative, but in areas of high crime, corruption of the authorities usually isn't a surprise.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 11:32 PM on May 25, 2004
I've lived in Johannesburg (in fact, I was born there) and it's not as bad as people in general (and the media in particular) make out. When I went back there to live for a while in my mid-twenties, people would ask me where I was from when they heard my accent, and when I told them "Belfast" they'd gasp and tell me I must have had a tough childhood. The media paints a picture of both places that is (in my experience) hugely distorted. Yes, Johanesburg has dangerous areas, but name me a city that hasn't? The country as a whole experiences (according to the article) about 2,000 murders a year. The average annual number of murders committed in the US in the decade between 1988 and 1998 was over 23,000. South Africa has around a sixth of the population of the US. You don't need to be a mathematician to be able to work out where you stand a better chance of meeting an unlawful end. I think this tragic thing could have happened in either country - or any other country where there are more guns than people. I feel sorry for the guy. He's been misguided and stupid but he's paying a hell of a price for it now - regardless of whatever sentence the court hands out, he has to live for the rest of his life knowing that his daughter is dead, and she's dead because he killed her. As for corrupt cops - you get them, but again, I doubt you could find many police forces in the world that didn't have the odd rotten apple in the barrel. That doesn't make it alright, but neither does it make South Africa exceptional in that respect. I think it's great that they've been given the world cup. I'm sure they'll pull it off as well, if not better than they managed the rugby and cricket world cups in 1995 and last year respectively. Besides, they couldn't make a worse job of it than the Greeks are looking like making of the Olympics. I'll stop now. I need to go and get on with writing up my CV to post off to the SA tourist board.
posted by JJ at 03:03 AM on May 26, 2004
thx JJ.
posted by garfield at 06:53 AM on May 26, 2004
Wow... that's in pretty poor taste there dude. Please make a note that it's only funny if you know, his daughter lived.