CAIRO, Apr. 21 (Aswat Masriya) – A Cairo court renewed on Thursday the detention of a low-ranking police officer accused of killing a tea vendor and injuring two others in the Rehab neighbourhood, for 15 days.

The low-ranking officer, Zeinhum Abdel Razek shot and killed a tea vendor, and injured two more people, early Tuesday morning after a quarrel over his refusal to pay for a cup of tea, in the upper-class Eastern Cairo neighbourhood

Shortly after the incident, the interior ministry said in a statement that the policeman fired the shot after a stand-off between him and the vendor "over the price of a drink."

Egypt's interior minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar referred the police officer to the public prosecution later on Tuesday on charges of premeditated murder and the attempted murder of two other people. On Wednesday, the prosecution ordered his detention for four days.

According to the Prosecution's investigations the police officer got out of his car and talked to the victim before insulting and beating him. He then went back to the police vehicle, grabbed his weapon and shot the vendor. The fired bullets also penetrated a micro bus leading to the injury of two of its passengers, and injuring a third passer-by.  

Citing a witness, Reuters reported that a crowd gathered and overturned a police vehicle and beating up another policeman at the scene of the incident.  

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told interior ministry officials on Wednesday that it is important to deter "irresponsible" performance, the presidency's spokesman said.

The president further discussed proposed legislative amendments to the police authority law to regulate police performance on the streets in line with "human rights standards." 

The murder is the latest in a series of incidents of reported police violence, which several rights groups attributed to a "culture of impunity" rampant among police personnel.

The interior ministry, however, repeatedly stated that the incidents are "individual violations" and that those who commit the violations are referred to trial.

In early April, a criminal court sentenced a policeman accused of deliberately killing a civilian in Darb al-Ahmar in Feb. to life in prison.

The killing was the result of a dispute between a driver and a policeman over the cost of loading goods.

The incident had sparked public anger at the police as hundreds took to protest in Cairo's streets after the killing, in an expression of anger that has become rare in the past few years. 

Police brutality was one of the triggers of the Jan. 25, 2011 uprising. Protests erupted on Police Day in Egypt at the time, aiming to draw attention to the police's use of excessive, at times fatal, force.