Trigger-happy policeman shoots student to death
Trigger-happy policeman shoots student to death
JAKARTA (JP): City Military Police have arrested a senior officer alleged to have fatally shot a 19-year-old high school student.
"We're still interrogating the officer," head of the Jakarta Military Police, Lt. Col. Anwaruddin, said yesterday.
The officer, identified only as Second Lieutenant Is, is said to have fatally shot Erwin Zulharman Arief, a third-year student of a vocational school in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, at around 1 p.m. Wednesday.
The incident is alleged to have taken place immediately in front of the officer's office on Jl. Suprapto, East Jakarta.
According to one of the victim's classmates, Erwin and his friends had been waiting for a bus near the scene when, without warning, another group of students armed with stones, iron bars and other weapons had approached and attacked them.
While some of his friends dispersed on foot, Erwin and some others got into a passing bus, according to the witness.
"Unfortunately, the driver stopped the bus and refused to carry them, apparently for fear that the attacking students would throw stones at his bus," said Agus, one of Erwin's classmates.
He said that as the students were getting off the bus, they saw police coming towards them. At that moment, he recounts, he heard the sound of a gun firing from behind them.
"I turned around and saw Erwin lying on the road with his head bleeding," Agus said.
Erwin was rushed to a nearby Islamic hospital but died two hours later.
When interviewed by The Jakarta Post yesterday, Erwin's 55- year-old mother, Tien Hartini, cried: "What did my son do to prompt the officer to unsheathe his gun and fire it?"
If the accounts received so far are accurate, Erwin is the second person to die at the hands of a trigger-happy police officer in the past two weeks.
Early last week a highway patrol sergeant killed a boy with his gun after the policeman found the boy, together with his friends, playing with fire crackers.
The sergeant concerned, identified only as W, is also being interrogated by the City Military Police.
Tentative investigations suggest that the shooting occurred on Sunday night of Feb. 5, when Arianto and three of his friends, all in their 20s, were playing with firecrackers on the roof of his house. Allegedly bothered by the sound of the firecrackers, the sergeant reprimanded Arianto several times, telling him to stop igniting the firecrackers. But the boy simply ignored him.
Losing his patience, the sergeant reportedly unsheathed his pistol and shot the boy in the head. (bsr)