Finetown: ‘How do you shoot someone selling chicken feet?’ – Cele

Police Minister Bheki Cele addressed the Finetown shooting on Monday and wanted to know how it was possible to rob street vendors selling chicken feet.

Six people have been confirmed dead and five others injured after a mass shooting in Finetown, Ennerdale, on Sunday.

Finetown shooting

According to police spokesperson Brigadier Brenda Muridili, the suspects allegedly attempted to rob street vendors selling chicken feet.

Muridili later confirmed three men and one woman died at the scene, while two women succumbed to their injuries at hospital.

Five other people – four men and a woman – had been treated for gunshot wounds as well.

‘How do you kill a chicken feet vendor?’

Cele answered questions from the media at the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide on Monday.

When asked for comment about the shooting incident on Monday, the frustration could be heard in Cele’s voice, and he was at a loss for words.

He said: “How do you rob a person who sells chicken legs? How does it happen? […] This person is at the bare minimum of life”.

“And really? You go and rob that person? You even shoot that person? You kill that person?”

‘We have animals here’

He added that the street vendors could easily have chosen a life of crime, but didn’t.

“How do you rob and kill a person who sells chicken feet? They could have been criminals, but they chose not to.”

“Even when they chase you away, you come back to kill them, it tells us that we don’t have fully-fleshed people around here, we have animals.”

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Investigation continues

In response to the xenophobic remarks doing the rounds, Cele said the police ministry’s job is to “find criminals, no matter where they come from”.

“And, we will find them,” he said.

Later, Cele said police are the punching bags when it comes to crime.

He called on South African citizens to “shout at those people [the criminals]”, instead of “shouting at government and police”.

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