The Heliopolis prosecution is continuing Monday’s investigation of a police officer charged with shooting the owner of a juice shop following an altercation between the two of them.
The incident took place on Sunday when a skirmish erupted between a police officer, affiliated with the Qena police department, and the owner of a juice shop located in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis. The dispute led the police officer to use his pistol, according to the prosecution’s investigations published in the state-run Akhbar Al-Youm.
The investigation conducted by the prosecution revealed that the reason behind the dispute was the desire of the police officer to pass along a street with his private vehicle before a truck that was operated by the shop owner.
In the midst of the conflict spectators say that the officer abruptly drew his pistol and shot twice in the air. Soon after, pedestrians, including the shop owner, tried to restrain him, his firearm discharged again, striking the shop owner’s leg, prosecution investigations asserted.
Through a phone interview conducted between the juice shop owner and the privately–run channel Dream, the owner condemned the way the police officer dealt with him, saying that it was provocative and inhuman.
“The police officer was offensive and he, along with his friends, insulted me after they exited their vehicle. Instead of asking me politely to move the truck, he gave orders as if we were ‘chicken,’” said shop owner Noman Saleh during Monday’s interview.
Similar shootings are rarely reported by state media or pro-state talk shows. The Egyptian state refuses the argument that abuse is a systematic problem within the police force, despite the increase of violations reported.
Police violence was one of the few reasons that fed into the agitations that fuelled the 25 January Revolution.
The Egyptian parliament rarely discusses police violence in its sessions. The only time in recent memory was when a member of parliament got into an argument with police while she was intervening to acquit her relative from a police station where he was accused of assault.
