YESTERDAY we reported that national police commissioner General Bheki Cele "cries for slain officers".

Cele was lamenting the shooting to death of warrant officers Bhekuyise Mahlalela and Lefu Mokoena in Ekurhuleni on Sunday.

Today the police force is also mourning the slaying of another colleague, Warrant Officer Mxolisi Mdutyana, yesterday morning.

Another day and another cop down: it is becoming the norm, a fast track to total anarchy.

The sad irony - in both attacks - is that these men in blue were trying to help citizens in and seemingly in distress.

Mahlalela and Mokoena were duped by thugs they thought had a car problem while Mdutyana was trying to save a woman from two louts.

Only the degenerates in our midst feel triumphant after such deadly acts: they do not want to be policed.

The thugs become more rampant in the absence of adequate security or policing.

"Our police officers are being mowed down even when they try to help," Cele said at the home of Mahlalela on Monday.

If you are seriously against the attacks on the police, the families of Mahlalela, Mokoena and Mdutyana would not have lost loved ones so savagely.

It is within our communities that these rogues boast about their so-called "kills".

It is us, me and you, who should root out these scum.

You must be ashamed every time an officer is attacked.

Flush them out of our townships. Like Cele you must say "Hands off our cops".