Welp, Oscar Pistorius is Free

I still remember Valentine’s Day of 2013 very well.

Waking up and reading that Paralympian Oscar Pistorius had ‘accidentally’ shot his girlfriend in the early hours of the morning is not something that has been easy to erase from my memories.

The way I heard it first, was that Reeva had snuck into his home in the dead of the night to surprise him and he thought she was an intruder. It was an absurd story, but still something many people accepted.

At that point, there was still a lot of sympathy for the dude. I mean, imagine how traumatised you must be after accidentally killing someone. We were all really concerned for his mental state.

Mind you, this was all unfolding for us mere hours after it had actually happened, so details weren’t exactly clear. Oscar was arrested at his estate and more of the story came out. We were glued to our Twitter timeline, shocked and horrified.

As time passed, a clearer picture began to emerge on what exactly happened. Or at least, his version of events.

Picture this: It’s the middle of the night. Reeva and Oscar are asleep in bed. Reeva gets up to go to the toilet.

He hears a noise in the bathroom. He thinks she is still in bed. He panics and grabs his gun, yelling for the intruder to vacate. He fires into the locked bathroom. Then Oscar realises Reeva is not in bed.

For me, there are too many inconsistencies in his story, and I did not believe him as I followed the trial closely at the time and got to see all the evidence.

The general consensus seems to be that he was a man prone to fits of rage and that he most likely knew she was in the bathroom, as she must have responded audibly to his warnings.

The main claim by the defence was that without his prosthetic legs on, Oscar felt extremely vulnerable and acted hastily in defending himself and his girlfriend against what he thought was an intruder.

But then the question keeps coming up: If they were in bed together, why did he not notice her absence or attempt to confirm her presence before getting up and arming himself?

If you are not alone at home, why would your first instinct be that a stranger – whom you’ve not seen with your own eyes – has barricaded themselves in your bathroom?

My biggest issue with this whole thing, however, is not whether or not he knew Reeva was behind that door and not in bed.

I feel that whether it was Reeva or an intruder, it was a cruel and inhumane way to execute someone.

The fact that it was his helpless girlfriend – hunched over, using the toilet – is one extra terrible element of the story. To shoot a human being at such close range – who is inside a tiny toilet – three times is a level of evil I cannot even put into words.

The trial revealed that he used a gun designed to inflict maximum damage, as the bullets spread out after being fired and are spiked.

The pathologist who conducted the autopsy gave a harrowing testimony of the injuries to Reeva’s hip, arm and head. It was so graphic that the live broadcasting, tweeting or blogging of his testimony was banned by the judge as it was too graphic and would cause harm – not only to Reeva’s family, but to viewers as well.

I think I’m personally haunted by the coverage of that case. What an awful time. And none of that trauma comes close to what Reeva may have felt.

She was locked in the bathroom, so getting medical attention fast enough was also hindered.

She was on the toilet seat inside a home she basically lived in, slept in and felt safe in.

Even if she had survived, she would have lost major motor and neurological functionality.

And yet, Oscar is soon free. When I first saw the news that he had been granted parole, I thought to myself: Wouldn’t it be nice if Reeva could apply for parole from death?

Wouldn’t it be nice if she could get up right now and just put this whole thing behind her, like he is clearly trying to do?

How extremely devastating that she can’t, but he can. Why does he get to move on when she can’t?

Why does he deserve penance and sympathy, when she remains forever in the ground?

My heart hurts. This was one of the most upsetting periods for many of us who watched it all unfold minute by minute. Twitter was a graveyard. We all felt so numb and angry and confused.

How could someone do that to a person they loved? How can this be the world we live in? Even worse now, how can the world we live in have a man like Oscar Pistorius roaming freely?

I sometimes wonder what he dreams about. I wonder if he is haunted by what he did. I wonder what kind of life he’ll live from now on.

He destroyed her family and his own. And now he’s free.

– Anne Hambuda is a poet, writer and social commentator. Follow her online or email her at annehambuda@gmail.com for more.

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