Mass Murder on the Mine: a South African Police Service Calamity

Mass Murder is not something anyone reading this can truly grasp. Even depictions on the nightly news channels are usually limited to the fallout of the horrendous event and its knock-on effects, with only the events of September the 11th 2001 coming close to capturing the truly harrowing nature of such traumatic actions. When Donough and Wendy McGillycuddy went to live in South Africa a year after that world-changing event, many, including their youngest son Jocelyn, openly carried a...
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Mass Murder is not something anyone reading this can truly grasp. Even depictions on the nightly news channels are usually limited to the fallout of the horrendous event and its knock-on effects, with only the events of September the 11th 2001 coming close to capturing the truly harrowing nature of such traumatic actions. When Donough and Wendy McGillycuddy went to live in South Africa a year after that world-changing event, many, including their youngest son Jocelyn, openly carried a firearm in fear of an attack. During this period, the most disadvantaged employees in the country, the miners, went on strike illegally, suffering fatal consequences in the process. Despite doing South Africa's dirtiest job for minimal reward, what should have been a routine strike resulted in tens massacred and hundreds incarcerated in a display of needless brutality. Digging deep into the reasons why such an event could happen and the destructive consequences of its aftermath, although events like this are often written off as random acts of violence, author Donough McGillycuddy dives into the social, political and economic reasons of how such a tragedy could ever happen.Starting with the undertrained police force and moving up the ranks from there, Mass Murder on the Mine compiles a huge amount of research and functions as a brilliant record of how one bad apple can impact the lives of hundreds.