The country was shocked today by the news that a man, reportedly on a sort of rampage, was killed by the police.

But it is even more shocked by the precipitate defence of the chain of events made by the Commissioner of Police and, even more so, by the government’s and other authorities’ seeming inability to step in and handle things at a higher level.

The killing of a man, however bad, however mentally ill, however much he may have damaged cars and threatened people, is a very serious matter in itself. Even if Friday night’s incident took place in a maelstrom of events, perceptions, mistakes or accidents, the fact is that a man ceased to live and that the shot or multiple shots that killed him came from a policeman’s gun.

Apart from an internal police inquiry into the chain of events, there is also a magisterial inquiry and the best way for the police to show respect for law and order and also for the dead man himself would have been to wait for the completion of the inquiry or inquiries.

It must be pointed out that Police Commissioner John Rizzo seems to have been very restrained in the words he used at the press briefing and altogether expressed himself in very sombre terms.

We are surrounded by death all the time, be they deaths on the roads, deaths on construction sites, deaths as a result of accidents and deaths as a result of violence. Every death, be it the death of the most obnoxious person on earth, is an untimely end to a life that should not have happened, and society has a duty to stop it from happening.

The forces of law and order in any country, in our country, need all the popular support they can get but they too, like any other component of society, from the media to the politicians and back again, must earn that respect and support. No respect is automatic in today’s world and the sight of a blue uniform is no longer enough to guarantee respect and obedience.

The not so distant past, now gone forever, has left a sour taste of suspicion in the minds of many Maltese. Others, even today, have their own complaints to make as a result of their own personal experience of lack of proper police action, as can often be heard from people who have been burgled and found no real help, or women in marital trouble who, for all the spin, still do not get proper protection when they ask for it. In other words, acceptance and approval, respect and obedience have to be earned and many times still hang in the balance.

To treat Friday night’s unfortunate chain of events as a very serious incident is right. To do otherwise would have been unspeakably callous. But in a society that lives by checks and balances, rather than a knee-jerk reaction by the top policeman to “explain what happened”, the country could have at least expected immediate proper and independent investigations to ensure that clear light is shed on the tragic series of events.