Dad murders wife, 5-year-old daughter during custody evaluation with social workers, police monitors (Ermelo, South Africa)

Still more evidence of how a father's rights are now privileged over the safety, health, and happiness of everyone else.

Somehow I'm thinking that this kind of violent, erratic behavior was not exactly new for dad EKHANIYA MDLULI. And yet instead of cutting this guy off at the pass and denying him custody and/or visitation with his daughter, the authorities persisted in pushing a custody "assessment" to be conducted by several social workers, so as to determine "whether the child should stay with her father."

However, notice that the social workers were sufficiently freaked out enough by Daddy to request police monitors during the assessment. Maybe I'm just being dense, but if the social workers are worried about their safety, then doesn't that tell you the child is in potential danger as well?

What happens is that Dad, a police reservist, manages to "take away" the gun of one of the monitors, and then pulls it on his wife and child. She ran with the child, but Daddy then charged them and mowed them down in cold blood.

Hmm. Wonder what the social worker assessment team had been thinking up to this point. Not that it matters, since all the parties are dead.

http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/mpumalanga/cop-kills-wife-child-self-1.1012130

Cop kills wife, child, self
January 14 2011 at 03:37pm

Independent Newspapers

A police reservist shot and killed his wife and seven-year-old daughter before turning the gun on himself in Ermelo, Mpumalanga police said on Friday.

The shooting happened on Thursday after Ekhaniya Mdluli allegedly had an argument with his estranged wife about custody of their child, Captain Leonard Hlathi said.

Social workers conducted an assessment to ascertain whether the child should stay with her father.

“During the negotiations, Mdluli allegedly pulled out a gun he took from one of the police officials who came to monitor the processes, as requested by the social worker,” he said.

“When he pulled out the gun, his wife saw him, took her child and ran away. Mdluli charged at her. After a distance of about 20 meters, she stopped following gunshots.”

It was suspected that he might have fired the shots to force her to stop.

He approached her, shot her in the chest and the child in the head. Both died on the scene. Mdluli then ran away and shot himself in the head.

This was the second incident of this nature in less than two months. - Sapa