Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pollsmoor — 1997-02-17

ADV POTGIETER: You shot three times.

MR STERRENBERG: That is correct sir.

ADV POTGIETER: Was your response that you were trained that way.

MR STERRENBERG: That is correct sir.

ADV POTGIETER: To respond like that.

MR STERRENBERG: That is correct.

ADV POTGIETER: Shoot somebody three times through the head.

MR STERRENBERG: If we are threatened with the - a person who is posing in an eminent danger to one self.

ADV POTGIETER: Ja were you not sure what the person is going to do - whether he is dying or whether he is - whatever is going to happen.

MR STERRENBERG: Ja in that situation sir I was reasonably sure that he was going to conduct or carry out an attack against me.

ADV POTGIETER: It never occurred to you to shoot him through a different part of the body.

MR STERRENBERG: Any shooting at any other part of his body sir would of in any event still afforded him the opportunity of carrying out an attack against him.

ADV POTGIETER: Until you were sure there was going to be a further attack on you - or an attack on you.

MR STERRENBERG: The circumstances Your Worship I assumed that the attack was eminent and was going to be carried out against me.

ADV POTGIETER: Is there no doubt in your mind at all.

MR STERRENBERG: None whatsoever sir.

ADV POTGIETER: About your conduct?

MR STERRENBERG: None whatsoever sir.

ADV POTGIETER: It never crossed your mind that you could have overstepped the situation completely.

MR STERRENBERG: Your Worship at that  time it was a  question of survival and I am sure in my own mind that if I hadn't taken  that action - action would have been taken and I could possibly have been injured or killed.

ADV POTGIETER: And I suppose that you - you don't have any particular feeling about this incident?

MR STERRENBERG: Your Worship that's an unfair assumption because a person has died here.  When any person dies it - obviously it affects a person - it affected me yes.

ADV POTGIETER: You see I must be quite honest with you - I am not speaking for my colleagues - I have a bit of a difficulty to try and read your mind under those circumstances - because it seems to me quite excessive to shoot somebody three times through the head under the circumstances that has been sketched here and I must be quite - I must be fair with you, I must put that difficulty to you here whether you want to debate it any further or whatever your response - whatever response you have.

MR STERRENBERG: Sir I don't intend to entering any debate - just put forward I myself on a number of occasions tried to read the mind of some other person placed in a situation of danger it's always extremely difficult to know how an individual would react in the situation or a life threatening situation.

ADV POTGIETER: Did you - did you at any stage allege that while the person was lying on the ground - he was firing shots.

MR STERRENBERG: I said at the beginning when he fell he had still been firing and then there was a lull in the firing at which time I ran closer to the tree.

ADV POTGIETER: Oh! that was before you got to the tree.

MR STERRENBERG: That's correct yes.

ADV POTGIETER: So you clear that whilst you were behind the tree and the person was lying on the ground - the person wasn't firing any further shots at you.

MR STERRENBERG: Not at that stage sir.

ADV POTGIETER: Because that was the impression that I got from the statement that you made later on that day on the 3rd of March.

MR STERRENBERG: May I just peruse my statement sir.

ADV POTGIETER: That after you had taken cover behind a tree - initially you said it was a stationary vehicle - you changed your statement - amended your statement in that regard and said that it was a tree in NY1 you say the person firing shots in our direction.

MR STERRENBERG: No incorrect Your Worship.

ADV POTGIETER: Is this wrong?

MR STERRENBERG: Ja.

ADV POTGIETER: The person never fired?

MR STERRENBERG: Not at me no sir.

ADV POTGIETER: No - no not fired at all.

MR STERRENBERG: Not at that stage no.

UNKNOWN: Now Superintendent perhaps I am naive being a lay person and not being a trained police person - I would like to understand for my own benefit - did you not think that in the circumstances you have described that it would have been appropriate for you to talk to the person by means of an order, an appropriate order - don't move you know the sort of things we have seen in bioscope's don't move.

MR STERRENBERG: I understand what you are saying sir.

UNKNOWN: I am covered if you move one more time I will have to shoot to kill you - those sort of thing.

MR STERRENBERG: I understand what you are saying sir.

UNKNOWN: The person is three phases away from you - you  are standing behind your tree - you see a movement of his shoulders more or less - did it not occur to you to do that?  Just asking the question?

MR STERRENBERG: I understand the sentiments but at that stage one has a split second to decide whether to take any action or not.

UNKNOWN: No I am just asking if it never occurred to you to do so.

MR STERRENBERG: No not at that stage.

UNKNOWN: And I take it that it is because  it never occurred to  you that - to ask the question that you didn't actually instructed the person not to move.

MR STERRENBERG: No I issued no instructions.

UNKNOWN: You never gave him an opportunity to surrender by ordering him to surrender.

MR STERRENBERG: Not at that stage sir - as I felt I was in eminent danger.

UNKNOWN: Yes, now I can quite understand what you felt then - so many years have now elapsed and in the coldness of this proceedings room, I am sure you now have had time to reflect and you have had the time to reflect and you are not being put on trial - now that you look back on things - do you still feel that it was not an appropriate thing for circumstances to have at least endeavoured to cause the person to surrender given that according to you the briefing that you had got was to escape or prevent these people from escaping or to arrest them.

MR STERRENBERG: Sir in retrospect and as you say ten years have passed and in ten years time I have lived - and relived that over and over in my mind - yes one thinks of 110 things that you could have done - jumped on his back, approached him, perhaps physically restrained him - but at that time and the fear that I experienced then - I was under the impression that I would - if the action if I didn't take that - if I hadn't taken the action that I did - that more than likely I would have been injured or killed.

UNKNOWN: What are your thoughts now?

MR STERRENBERG: Your Worship I would have - I think in a situation tried to have called to the person and see what his reaction would have been.

UNKNOWN: Pumla.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you Chairperson - during advocate Potgieter's  questioning one of the things he asked you about why it was that you continued firing seven shots and I think if I hear you correctly your response was that as I fired it was clear he wasn't dead.
 Now if under different circumstances say this is a [indistinct] but since you've stated under oath that your intention was to have him - to prevent him from harm - doing harm and to arrest him - I assume what you actually mean is that he wasn't down - you continued firing because he wasn't down.

MR STERRENBERG: I am assuming you are asking when I [intervention]

ADV VAN ZYL: Just a minute Mr Chairman I am sorry to interrupt but I do not  have a note that this witness has said that he wasn't  dead - that's how I understand the question.  My notes read that he fired seven shots in quick succession, the shots had no effect on him and I think what the witness said was that he didn't go down - he kept on running - he kept on firing, I never heard the word dead.