Two South African police officers arrested over deadly shooting of 16-yr-old

Two yet-to-be named South African police officers have been arrested over the deadly shooting of a 16-year-old boy with Down’s syndrome, which had sparked violent street protests.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) in a statement on Saturday said that it had decided to arrest the officers after “careful consideration of the evidence at hand”.

The officers will be charged with murder and “possibly defeating the ends of justice”, said the police watchdog.

The police initially said Julius had been caught up in a shootout between officers and local gangsters.

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However, the family of Nathaniel Julius said that the deceased had gone out to buy biscuits when he was shot dead in Johannesburg’s Eldorado Park suburb by the police.

The family said Julius was shot after not answering officers’ questions and also added that this was because of his disability.

“There is no evidence of any provocation and it’s difficult to understand why live ammunition could be used in a community such as this,” Archbishop Malusi Mpumlwana, head of the South African Council of Churches, told local media outside the Julius household.

“We can’t say Black Lives Matter in the United States if we don’t say it in South Africa,” he said.

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