vox populi small thumbnail 'We have a situation where the bad guys are in control and the good officers have to follow their orders or risk losing their jobs.'

Police 'blue wall of silence' runs riot at discussion

Pemerhati: Supt Sharifah Hawariah said there were bad apples but there were also a lot of good police officers. Unfortunately, most of the bad apples are in top positions and the good officers have to take orders from them.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad's strategy was to fill the important top posts in the enforcement, judicial, and other institutions with corrupt, incompetent or unprincipled officers so that he could get them to do his crooked bidding.

He and Umno protected and rewarded them if they did their dirty work successfully as was clearly evident in the rapid promotions of former police chief Musa Hassan, attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail and the late ex-Federal Court judge Augustine Paul after Anwar Ibrahim was imprisoned on trumped-up sodomy charges.

Mahathir's complete control of the government machinery enabled him and his friends to steal billions by getting kickbacks on government contracts and procurements.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib Razak also used a similar strategy and so we have a situation where the bad guys are in control and the good officers have to follow their orders or risk losing their jobs.

Quigonbond: I commend folks like Ku Chin Wah and Sharifah Hawariah who appear to be the honest cops, also perhaps the minority and a dying breed in the force.

This is calling out to all the good cops in PDRM (Royal Malaysian Police). Work with the civil society.

When Pakatan Rakyat takes over the federal government, you will finally see your day in the sun instead of living under a culture of corruption and fear.

Nik V: For those police officers present at the forum who felt maligned by the civil society activists, you need to understand that they are standing up for the rakyat whom you are supposed to be protecting.

If your excuse is "orders come from higher up", then you will get the disrespect for not doing what you are paid to - that is to protect society even from the ‘higher ups'.

If you protect the rakyat, you can rest assured that the rakyat will stand by you and defend your good name.

Ferdtan: Both Ku Chin Wah and Shaifah Hawariah are small fry in the police force. Even though Ku is the city CID chief - the real power are those officers who take direct orders from their political master, Umno, and do their bidding.

Up2U: Blame the system, not the police in general. How can you expect our men in blue to be independent when all the senior officers promotion and extension of service are dependent on the government of the day, which so happen to have been the ruling government for the past 54 years?

Bob Teoh: PDRM has to acknowledge the fact the public has lost confident in them more so when they continue to act on the behest of Umno.

The absurdity overtrying to pin PSM down on sedition and letting Utusan Malaysia go scot free with its race vilification are a couple of such instances. The PDRM has no choice but to be professional in carrying out its task.

Ex-CID chief: Police must use finesse not force

Ben-ghazi: It is telling that when these police or military officers are retired, they seem to be able to rationalise better about what is right and what is wrong.

When they were cooped up in their military/police uniforms, they were only able to follow orders, even when these orders went against the law.

Take for example, the military officers who were ordered to vote for their colleagues in the camps. While in service, they dared not utter a word.

Who can blame them? Their pensions are at stake. Now that the former CID chief Mohd Zaman Khan is talking, I hope the serving police officers can take a lesson or two from him.

Solaris: "Gone are the days when you can use force as a threat." Force as a threat? Who are you kidding, Zaman?

For PRDM (Royal Malaysian Police), force is much more than just a threat. It's a means to achieve submission.

And it is disgraceful to say that the police must tread carefully now as the rakyat are wiser because they know their human rights when it's the police who should be protecting and upholding these rights. You people will never get it right.

2cts Worth: Zaman, you cannot take advantage of the people who are not well-informed about the law. Instead, you are to follow the law in discharging your duties, no matter what.

The police are no better than criminals if they intimidate and bully suspects in their custody, especially those who are ignorant of their rights. I just wonder what sort of people we have in our police force.

David Dass: 'Finesse not brute force'. We must learn modern police and CSI-type interrogation techniques from more advanced nations.

In Japan, DNA evidence solves a high proportion of crime. In US, DNA evidence has resulted in many convictions being reversed - sometimes even after the accused have been executed.

Quite often these convictions have been obtained by overzealous police officers tampering with or otherwise 'cooking' or 'improving' the evidence. Racial profiling often produces unjust results.

In UK, a high proportion of people of African descent are arrested and interrogated on suspicion of having committed a crime but relatively few are actually convicted.

In US, a disproportionate number of Afro-Americans are in prisons and on death row suggesting - some believe - racial bias. Indeed, in advanced countries, less reliance is placed on confessions.

One Brain Cell: Zaman was among the more intelligent police officers who actually had a conscience and a heart. Now that he's retired, it's reassuring to see him devoting his time to positive, humanitarian causes.

Perhaps Pakatan, if they assume the federal administration, can engage Zaman as an advisor when it comes the time to reform the PDRM, something which is long overdue.

 

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