Hunting season is wide open and our cops are the prey.

Hunting season is wide open and our cops are the prey.

So far, crazed criminals have bagged three cops in Gauteng alone this week, six this month, 108 countrywide in the past year, and more than 650 in four years.

Most of the perpetrators don't get away with their crimes because the police are particularly efficient in bringing cop killers to book.

But that's not the issue. The cops are our last line of defence against criminal anarchy and no one should even think of shooting a police officer.

Instead our brazen criminals increasingly shoot first and then think about the consequences.

That needs to change - now. All life is valuable beyond measure, but the cops are the symbol of state authority. They represent everything we hope to become as a people.

So cop killers should know they will be hunted down like the vermin they are.

Then they should face punishment so ghastly that even the dumbest perpetrator with nothing left to lose will know that, whatever the circumstances, there is nothing to gain and everything to lose by killing a police officer.

We might quibble about our cops, their efficiency, training and practices. But everyone will agree that their lives are sacrosanct.

The government must now act fearsomely and decisively. We, Thabo and Thandi Public, won't stand for less.