African cobra used as an attempted murder weapon

South African cops work in the most violent country on earth and are tough: even facing down protestors at peacekeeping missions in Sudan. But being faced by a man who wanted to kill them with a deadly African cobra was an entirely new experience.

A South African man was arrested for threatening to kill three policemen with an African cobra snake in Bloemhof, an agricultural and platinum mining area in South Africa.The African cobra 's bite is extremely toxic, causing a quick, albeit reportedly painless death. Police constable A. Smit said police weren't going to take any chances when they saw the angry man, identified only as 'Bonnie', holding a burlap bag which was seen to move ominously. Bonnie had shown up at a policeman's girlfriend's house in the Bloemhof township of Tshidilamolomo, threatening to kill him and several other colleagues with the snake. It's not exactly clear why he ‘d wanted to kill the cops -- however his death threat was taken very seriously indeed. South African cops are the walking targets of Africa: the police academy can't graduate them fast enough: according to the Institute of Security Studies, at least 4,500 South African cops have died since 1991, more than half gunned down in the line of duty, including at African Union peace keeping missions, amongst others in the Sudan. see their 2008 roll of honour here However, facing being murdered with an African cobra hadn't been part of of their training at the academy. Smit said police had rushed to their colleague’s house after receiving the strange alert from a girlfriend -- and found Bonnie still standing there glaring at them, clutching that ominous bag. Even more scary was that when Bonnie saw the cops arrive, he put his hand inside the bag, took out a knife and threatened the cops with it. It was a stand-off until one cop fired a warning shot into the roof – at which point the man switched off the light and ran off to hide in a bedroom - still clutching that bag with his precious snake. He was then approached v e r y s l o w l y at gunpoint and the bag and knife were taken away from him. Bonnie's appearing in court soon. However, the scariest part of this story is that nobody says what was done with the snake...