Friends sitting in a park in Port Elizabeth, having some beers and chatting about job opportunities further afield. One minute they are joking around, laughing and taking the mickey out of each other. The next, one of them is dead – and for no obvious reason. Was it because they snubbed his alleged attacker when he asked for a cigarette? None of them were smokers so they had none to give him. Or was it just a gratuitous act of violence – a random, vicious attack that has robbed a loving family of a beloved father, son and brother?Monde Magxaki, 37, was the light of his family’s life. Despite the hardships of daily living and not having a fixed income, he was the joker in the family, the one who made everyone smile when times were tough.He never let his circumstances get him down and was determined to find a job – even if he had to go to Johannesburg – so that he could provide for his little girl.But in the blink of an eye, this young, hardworking, committed family man was brutally hacked to death, leaving behind a family who adored him, to whom he was a ray of sunshine in an often dark, depressing world.His alleged attacker – who lives just down the road from Monde’s devastated family – turned himself in after initially being rushed away from the scene by his father, and has been released on bail of just R500.How cheap life has become. How tragic that a group of young people cannot sit in the open talking and enjoying each other’s company without violence being visited upon them so randomly.There is not a day that goes by that we do not write about murders, rapes, gang attacks, witness killings, and more. But we, as a nation, have become so inured to the daily diet of violence that it no longer shocks or horrifies us. How did we get here? When did we lose our humanity? It is time to show we care. We need to stand up and say “No” to crime. Let us push, and push, and push, until the police are given the resources they need to properly do their jobs of keeping our communities safe.Let us say “not on my watch” to these callous, coldblooded killers.