diff --git a/libmariadb/mariadb_lib.c b/libmariadb/mariadb_lib.c
index 1db7cf34..b4a36585 100644
--- a/libmariadb/mariadb_lib.c
+++ b/libmariadb/mariadb_lib.c
@@ -3313,10 +3313,17 @@ mysql_refresh(MYSQL *mysql,uint options)
 int STDCALL
 mysql_kill(MYSQL *mysql,ulong pid)
 {
-  char buff[12];
-  int4store(buff,pid);
-  /* if we kill our own thread, reading the response packet will fail */
-  return(ma_simple_command(mysql, COM_PROCESS_KILL,buff,4,0,0));
+  char buff[16];
+
+  /* process id can't be larger than 4-bytes */
+  if (pid & (~0xFFFFFFFFUL))
+  {
+    my_set_error(mysql, CR_CONNECTION_ERROR, SQLSTATE_UNKNOWN, 0);
+    return 1;
+  }
+
+  snprintf(buff, sizeof buff, "KILL %lu", pid);
+  return mysql_real_query(mysql, (char *)buff, (ulong)strlen(buff));
 }