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- BUENOS AIRES - Argentine
Vice President Carlos Ruckauf urged police Wednesday to shoot criminals
without warning, aiming for their arms or legs.
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- "I'm not saying the police should kill robbers,
but they should shoot them in the leg or in the arm. What you can't do
is shout at the criminal to stop and so give him time to shoot the policeman
or the member of the public,'' Ruckauf told local radio.
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- "When a criminal is attacking someone, you've got
to eliminate the criminal because he is trying to kill a member of the
public,'' he said.
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- Ruckauf, a ruling Peronist Party candidate, is running
for governor of Buenos Aires province, home to more than a third of Argentina's
36 million people, in national elections on Oct. 24.
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- Center-left Alliance candidate Graciela Fernandez Meijide,
who holds a slight lead over Ruckauf in polls ahead of the election, dismissed
his proposal as "ridiculous.''
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- "We all know that crime rises when people are economically
desperate,'' she said.
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- Ruckauf said that a law requiring police to identify
themselves and wait for criminals to fire at them before firing back only
put officers at risk. More than 35 police officers have died in the line
of duty so far this year.
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- Opinion polls say Argentine voters see the rising crime
rate as one of the country's top problems together with corruption and
unemployment.
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- Argentina's security forces labor under a reputation
for corruption and brutality earned during the 1976-83 military dictatorship,
when up to 30,000 suspected leftists were killed or made to "disappear''
" including Fernandez Meijide's son.
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