Pistorius: people around him were NOT grounding him and pulling him back to earth

Oscar Pistorius

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Pistorius' prior police run-ins
February 20, 2013
By Samuel Burke
CNN

During the bail hearing for Oscar Pistorius in Pretoria on Wednesday, a South African police investigator testified about previous run-ins that the double amputee Olympian has had with police.

Detective Hilton Botha said in his testimony that Pistorius had accidentally fired a weapon at a restaurant in January, and alleged that Pistorius persuaded a friend to take responsibility - Pistorius denied those charges.

The investigator also said Pistorius had previously threatened violence in another incident in an altercation over a woman.

In 2009, Botha said he also investigated another incident, in which an unidentified woman had accused Pistorius of assault, but her claim could not be proved and the case was dropped without any charges being filed...

Patta believes these previous incidents were clearly seeds of some trouble.

"There were daemons that were driving this young man, Oscar Pistorius, who we know as a hero in South Africa. And yet there were signs of aggression." Patta said.

"The gun [incident] took place just a couple of weeks ago and that is incontrovertible. The gun was fired in an open public area. Oscar Pistorius disputes that he fired the gun." Patta said. "He says that it was a friend, but people who were with him said he did fired it. It was fired by accident, make no mistake, but the fact that a gun was being played around with in place public in it of itself is horrifying"

That fact that "song and dance" wasn't made about the incident is also indicative of South Africa's attitude toward these incidents, according to Patta. She believes an episode like this, where a gun is fired where an athlete was present, in another country would have provoked a public debate on gun proliferation.

The allegation in 2009 was not tested in a court of law - Oscar Pistorius was not as well known, not even in South Africa, at that time. Pistorius did speak openly about the incident according to Patta, claiming the incident was a misunderstanding, and even eventually no charges were filed.

"That too seems to have been dropped and just pushed under the carpet," Patta said. "And now when one looks back with, of course, the exact science of hindsight, it does seem that there were warning signs that at the very least that Oscar Pistorius displayed a significant amount of aggression and that were not people around him who were grounding him and pulling him back to earth."