I am one who is against abuse of power by enforcement agencies and am disgusted by allegations of foul play in killings of suspects in police shoot-outs and similar incidents.

But the authorities too must be given a fair hearing. This is especially so in the shooting incident of a VCD seller in Penang a few days ago.

We have read reports of how violent these peddlers and their tontos (lookout men) can be. We have even watched news footage of these law-breakers physically abusing enforcement officers.

Even women enforcement personnel are not spared, as seen in the news some months back of a raid on a shop selling pirated VCDs in, yes, Penang.

Of course, the police share a big part of the blame for not giving enough assistance to these government officers who courageously do their duty.(thus giving rise to allegations of police involvement in these illegal activities).

The officer who shot the youth in Penang claimed that he did so in self-defence. He claimed that the victim and others attacked them with baseball bats.

From what I have seen thus far, the extent to which these VCD kingpins, alongs, tontos and such people would go to to show their might, I tend to believe the officer in this case.

The public and opportunistic politicians would naturally make a big outcry.

These same people would also condemn enforcement officers for not having enough muscle to deal with law-breakers.

Ignore them.