Galong

There seems to me to be a very common theme in most of the violence we read about... alcohol! It is the root of many evils and should be illegal.

Isn't the World Health Organization the same moron who claimed that as many people or more would die from disease after the tsunami than died from it??? Maybe they mistook Thailand for New Orleans.

They are NOT authorities on health. They are blood-sucking media leeches and I don't believe a thing that they say. they've cried 'wolf' too many times to be trusted.

Furthermore, I'll bet 216 people died from Malaria today... what about doing something about that WHO? Oh, that's right, it's poor blacks in Africa and poor Asians tucked away out of sight... they don't count I reckon.

WHO is about as trustworthy at Talk-sin.

I say the "REAL THAI AUTHORITY's should conduct a few random drug tests around town. They just might find out a few more contributing facts to this tragety.

If you're referring to wacky tobaccy... Alcohol is obviously one of the most dangerous drugs on the planet! How many families have been torn apart by alcoholism? How many drunk drivers have killed completely innocent people? Have you ever heard of a stoner beating up his/her family or driving like a lunatic? No, because pot doesn't affect the brain in the same way as alcohol... from what I've been told and read.

From the Liberty Post website:

In purely objective terms, beverage alcohol is a recreational hard drug: mind-numbing, easy to misuse and intimately connected with aggression, carelessness, and despair. When a drugged individual is involved in a violent crime or an accident, the drug is most often alcohol. In America, alcohol is responsible for 65 percent of murders, 55 percent of college rapes (that's 70,000 per year), 39 percent of traffic fatalities, 33 percent of all trauma injuries, 33 percent of drownings and other accidental deaths, and 25 percent of teen suicides. About 150,000 Americans die from chronic alcohol-related illnesses each year, and another 3,000 from accidental overdoses.

Random drug tests would only serve to fill the pockets of the authorities, it wouldn't curb crime if they're checking for pot. Other, harder drugs, are a different story. Random testing for alcohol would be much better in my opinion.

If you really want to stop this sort of violence, Ban Alcohol!!!

Ciao

Mayor charged after 'drunken fight with police'

"It shows I never touched anyone."

*except for the 20 minutes of video that captured a great deal of intimate "touchin" with the accompanying "well-known model." * j/k

"The footage records everything from start to finish. It proves what I say," he said.

Prarob claimed Chonsawas said: "Who are you? And you don't know who my father is?"

*superbly classic line*

He denied being drunk. He said he wore short trousers and casual attire at the time, something he did not do when going out for a drink. *For that activity, he said he typically dons a Spider-Man costume underneath a Hello Kitty dress.* j/k

When asked about the three women in his car, Chonsawas said: "What models? I am puzzled. They are not models, just friends."

*uhhmm... yeah, ok... they are "just friends" *

- The Nation

=======================================

OMG John! Thanks for your editorial bits... it really made this story a lot more interesting.

*why he doesn't stay there? third person still unharmed. and could harm him. he doesn't know if he had knock off the others finally nor if they still could harm him. but still bullets in his gun he dosn't aim for a finishing shot - no he goes away and seeks backup by police

Did he run away and go straight to the police? Or is this an assumption that you consider to be a 'fact'? What was the time difference between the shooting and Uthai turning himself in?

"doesn't aim for a finishing shot"? Are you serious? A bullet in the chest IS a finishing shot! He seemed to have been shooting to kill. It's merely luck that the woman didn't die.

I don't see how most of your facts are actually credible.

Good thing you're not going to be on the jury.

Whoa, long thread, can't be bothered to read it all ... yada, yada, yada

OK, this will hopefully bring you up to speed:

1. Something happened in Pai with a cop and two tourists.

2. Tempers flared

3. Nasty posts deleted by moderators

4. Assumptions made

5. Tempers flared

6. Acceptance that some of us are wrong

7. More assumptions made

8. Agreement on some points

9. Friendships made... sort of

10. Assumptions made, but more politely presented

Peace

After all the speculation on the 'details' the following are the basic facts.

An armed cop shot 2 unarmed people. The 2nd person shot was a female. The cop ran away.

The 'official' version has more holes in it than the people shot.

Pathetic little man, I hope he gets his punishment but I doubt anything will happen in the long run.

Hammer > Nail > Head Unfortunately, I think your last sentence is correct too. I sure would like to be wrong.

Furthermore, if he had his pistol under his motorbike seat, I see that as a bit irresponsible. A crowbar and vwalla! A bad guy has got a gun! What a minute, a bad guy had the gun in the first place.

Am I correct in assuming that cops in the US and probably elsewhere are on the job 24/7 too?

Thus Uthai being called in to break up a domestic quarrel would not have been unusual, though of course his use of excessive force is an entirely different story.

I have heard from a reliable local source that Thai police are not permitted to fire more than one shot in self defence. Obviously, unless Uthai's claims that the shots were accidental (which seems incredible) is true, he is clearly guilty of excessive force.

So what would the charge be for using excessive force resulting in the death of two people? Manslaughter? The possibility of Uthai "accidentally" putting three lethal shots in the guy and one lethal shot in the woman is pretty darn far-fetched in my opinion. Certainly this can't honestly be interpreted as self defense.

There is a very good reason that the Thai police are not usually punished for there indiscretions. The reason is not justified and I'm not going along with it so please don't kill the messenger (me).

The Thai police represent some 250,000 poorly trained, somewhat powerful individuals who see themselves as the "thin brown line" that holds back evil doers from committing atrocities against the weak and hi-so classes. Most at the lower level have little formal education in the western sense and they do exactly as they are told by their superiors. The police are not only quasi-military they are part of the feudal system here that keep the rank and file cops forever at that lower level and the higher ranks are filled through a patronage system. The system in place is quite lucrative as we all suspect and NO ONE in the upper levels of the police administration is going to rock the boat nor would one be allowed to.

Now if you look at the police as a "closed system" that cannot be threatened from within or without for fear of upsetting the balance of things you begin to understand why they protect their own at all costs. Very powerful people have ownership in this system and if it becomes threatened, history will show they close ranks and protect what is theirs. If the lower ranking officers are not protected from culpability or at the very least protected from jail and continue to receive a salary to feed the family, the system will breakdown. The police commanders must have the unwaivering support of the rank and file to sustain the cash flow and maintain the status quo. It is quite easy for the police to ride out the media storm by making moves we have all seen before. A quick arrest and the obligatory reassignment to an "inactive post". Additional action will be seen by the rank and file as a weakness in the command staff and the system will be in jeopardy. In their mind it is really a case of "us (police) versus them (anyone else).

I believe that you are spot-on in this analogy... unfortunately. In light of what you're saying here, I don't expect any downside for the brave Sir Uthai.

In this case, we have the astounding physical evidence of overwhelming, deadly force by an off-duty cop used on two unarmed, albeit, unruly members of the public.

We can't prove if he Uthai was drunk because he left; we only have second-hand accounts.

We can't prove if Reisig and Del Pinto hit the cop first, because this is also a second-hand account, and both first-hand accounts vary.

If they did hit or push the cop, does this warrant deadly force -- twice? This alleged offense anywhere else should have gotten them arrested and deported, but not killed. Did Reisig's story shift - yes; Did the cop's story shift - yes; Do they both have bad character references - yes;

Do cops have the right to execute unruly members of the public, at their discretion?

If they are the police, it is part of their job to know how to use acceptable force in a public nuisance situation. The public also has a right not to be attended to by "alleged" drunk, off-duty police officers with no understanding of professionalism and acceptable force. They also have a right to a fair and impartial investigation.

Neither professionalism nor impartiality are traits commonly associated with the Thai police, or as it seems, many expats.

Leaving the scene of the crime speaks volumes! Besides being extremely unprofessional, it eliminated the possibility of him being proven to be drunk. That alone is enough evidence to me to put his actions in question.

Is Uthai so weak that he couldn't defend himself against a woman without resorting to deadly force with a firearm? Why didn't he use muay Thai? Do cops carry mace? They should. Do they carry a billy club (stick)? They should. Did he have handcuffs with him? Couldn't he have yelled for help from the locals?

Why didn't he call for back-up if he wasn't sure if he could deal with a single female 'criminal'? What a pathetic excuse for a man. There is absolutely no excuse for using deadly force against a woman. Maybe she's a bodybuilder too in his eyes.

As the cops are doing the investigation and forensics, I fully expect this macho cop to get off scott free.

The victim.

Um, so where's the bodybuilder? Th e guy in this photo doesn't look like one.

"...adding that the Siam Park bought it from a company in Canada."

Expect it to be Canada's fault.

I think you are wrong on this occasion and you might be in for a surprise in the coming months. Don't expect everywhere to comply with the law, but I think the majority of venues will.

I'd love to be wrong on this one. I hope you're right.

However, I think that bribe money will keep some places smoking...

Where's a yawn smiley face thingy when you need one.

This is just another law that won't be enforced or that will be enforced from time to time in certain areas.

Totally disagree.

'Thai Culture', 'Thai Mindset' and 'Thai Way of Thinking' are merely excuses for the Thais laziness, refusal to act in an adult manner, their inability to take responsibility for their actions and many of their other failings as a society, culturally and as a country.

It is time they stopped shirking and started to grow up as a nation and act as responsible individuals.

Finally, someone with a handle on the reality of the situation.

Good luck to the guy at least he has some imagination and drive hope he does ok with his hovercraft, so there is some noise so what.

Some noise? Unless things have changed dramatically since I heard my last hovercraft, these will be louder than the unmuffled Longtails

There needs to be a serious environmental impact study as well. We don't need yet another vehicle for destruction now do we?

Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn is truly one of the more enlightened people in this country and perhaps in the world. I'm sure that if more citizens followed her example, the country would benefit greatly.

I was fortunate enough to take her kayaking many years ago. She understands the true value of preserving the environment and the problems that will become manifest if Nature is destroyed.

I hope more of her ideas are printed. Marquess, thanks for posting this and please post anything else you find from her.

Long Live HRH the Princess!!!

We need more stuff like this so the baht will come down in value a bit... the exchange rate with the US dollar is killing me! Ouch

It's quite normal farang bahavior to talk about how life should be in thailand. They spend inordinate amounts of time pontificating about this and that bad thing about thai way of life. And how it's so much better back home.

It is always of amazement to me how people can rail on so much about a country they have moved to, yet continue to stay in their own cesspool that they feel they live in.

I strongly disagree with what you're assuming here. For me and I'm pretty sure many others, we'd like a level playing field (just like Thais expect when they move to my country), government policies that aren't based on race/nationality and a modicum of law enforcement that doesn't allow cops or anyone else to get away with murder.

I don't recall too many posters talking about how much better it is back home. We talk about some aspects of 'back home' being better, but we don't make such general sweeping statements... from what I've read.

If you don't like debates such as the one on this thread, you can skip it and read some that fall within your definition of acceptable farang behavior.

Perhaps I can bring a little perspective to this tragic case through the eyes of an experienced homicide detective. In my many years as a homicide detective with a major police department in the United States, I investigated a number of police-related shootings. These were difficult investigations, because usually we would know the officer involved in the shooting and we often were under pressure from department supervisors to justify the shooting and from the media and the public to crucify the officer. It takes tremendous professionalism in order to ignore these outside pressures and conduct a thorough investigation.

Out of more than 30 officer-related shootings that my partner and I investigated, four were determined to be criminal offenses (trial juries acquited three of the four officers in the shootings). Another seven investigations determined that the officer violated departmental policy and in three of those cases, the officer was terminated. In three other cases, the officers resigned. The seventh case, the officer filed an appeal and was re-hired with back wages paid in full. The rest of the shootings were justified.

We are limited to depending on newspaper articles, a brief police statement and an interview with one of the victims to provide the "facts" about the double shooting in Pai. Based on this limited information, the issues would appear to be these:

1) Was the Canadian couple actually inebriated? Did they argue in a public place (the street) and disturb public peace and/or was there an assault by the Canadian man against the woman or the woman against the man?

2) Did the Royal Thai Police officer witness a crime? Was the police officer in uniform or civilian clothes? Did the officer clearly identify himself as a police officer? Was the police officer drunk or had he been drinking off-duty? Does the Royal Thai Police have a policy for their police officers' conduct when they are off-duty? Are officers expected to enforce the law 24/7 or does their law enforcement responsibilities conclude at the end of shift? What is the policy about officers carrying service weapons off-duty?

3) Was the police officer assaulted by one or more of the victims? Did the officer feel his life was in jeopardy? At what point did the officer produce his weapon? Was it a department-issued weapon? What was said between the officer and the shooting victims?

4) The officer claims the shooting was accidental. The number of shots fired would seem to undermine his statement. At what proximity to the victims were the shots fired? Were these contact wounds? Were the shots fired from within six feet from the victims? If the shots were beyond six feet, this again would undermine the officer's statement because the victims were too far away to present an immediate threat. In addition, were the three shots fired simultaneously or was there a time delay between the firing of the rounds? The officer is going to have a very difficult time explaining why the female victim was also shot, unless she was assaulting him at the time he fired the rounds. In addition, the officer said he was struggling to regain control of his weapon at the time the first rounds were fired. Assuming the Royal Thai Police have the actual weapon, are the victim's fingerprints on the gun?

5) What was the position of the deceased victim at the time of the shooting? How did the bullet enter the victim's mouth and exit through his shoulder? Unlike some of the speculation of several posters on TV, the larger the caliber of the bullet, the less likely the round would deflect off bone (rather it would shatter the bone and keep going). Usually small caliber rounds (.22, .25 or .32 caliber) are extremely deadly because they travel at high speed and are light enough to bounce around inside the body cavity. A shooting scene reconstructionist (and yes the Royal Thai Police have at least 30 of them because I trained many of them) would be able to determine the path of the three shots that were fired and the relative positions of the three participants in this shooting.

6) What were the results of the toxicology tests? Was the Canadian couple inebriated? What was their blood/alcohol level? Did they have any drugs in their system? Did the officer test positive for alcohol? Was he inebriated? Did he have any drugs in his system at the time he was tested after the shooting?

7) What do the eyewitnesses say? How was their interrogation handled...were they all segregated prior to statements being taken so they couldn't compare their eyewitness accounts? How reliable were these witnesses? Were they sober? Was there any indication that some of them might have been under the effects of narcotics? Where were they located in relation to the shooting? Are these unbiased witnesses?

8) What did the suspect say? We have not seen the full statement of the officer, just a brief synopsis by a spokesman for the Royal Thai Police. Does the officer's statement correspond with the statements of the other eyewitnesses? Was a gunshot residue test taken from the officer's hands, body and clothing and from the victim's hands and clothing to indicate that the officer indeed fired the gun? If gunshot residue is found on the victim's hands, body or clothing, that would indicate that they were in close proximity to the weapon when it was fired, thus helping to corroborate the officer's story. Why did the officer leave the scene? Where did he go? Are there witnesses that can corroborate the officer's story about where he went? The fact that he left the scene of the shooting is something that would raise a red flag with me. Was he dumping illegal narcotics that he might have had on him at the time of the shooting? Did he panic? Was he trying to sober up? Did he switch out guns? The suspect should be extensively questioned about his actions after the shooting?

9) What is the background on the victims and the officer? Is there something in their histories that would indicate that they were prone to this type of circumstance? Did either of the victims have a prior history of assaults on police officers? Did the police officer have other incidents in his career that would support the theory that he had an anger issue? Had he ever shot anyone in the past? Did he have other incidents with Farangs?

10) How transparent will this shooting investigation be? Will the Royal Thai Police attempt to hush up the incident? Or will they present the investigation findings to the public for review?

Since none of us really know all the details of this situation, we can only wait until the Royal Thai Police complete their investigation. I hope they have successfully answered all the questions that I have posed. I'll be watching with great interest to see what happens.

Absolutely Perfect! It would be nice if these questions were answered in the media, but I'm afraid we'll get a white-washed version. Everything you said here (in the form of questions) would satisfy me (for sure) and most of the other posters (I hope) and the family of the deceased.

Thanks for the posting Farang Prince

Back to the topic of the thread:

Regarding Reisigs recent past:

1. This cop approached them in plain-clothes, didn't identify himself as a cop, and punched a strange woman in the head on the street.

Isn't this also one sided hearsay or an unproven statement at the present time?

It was perfectly natural for them to react and try to defend themselves by shoving him away. The cop then acted in a completely unnatural and unwarranted show of force by drawing his gun, and then firing three fatally aimed shots. When Leo del Pinto wrestled with him for the gun, he probably still didn't know the guy was a cop.

2. Reisig allegedly punched a cop two weeks earlier .... where was it -- in a bar??? Was this another social interaction of a plain clothes and undeclared cop? Do we know why she would punch a guy in a bar? No, we don't, and we don't even know if it happened or have her account of things so it is still one-sided heresy.

3. None of this should matter in apportioning blame to the cop and his actions, and the actions of the Thai judicial system. None of it.

Don't jump on me please I am just trying to be fair if you apply a set of rules they should apply accross the board.

No, I wouldn't because I think it's a fair comment. It is very easy to prove or disprove that the cop was off-duty and not wearing a uniform. He was also in the restaurant allegedly drinking. Was he drunk? If he was wearing a uniform, would the scenario have unfolded differently? We only have the victim's and witness' account of this aspect because the suspect - a cop - FLED after the incident.

I think that this is a very important aspect of the "truth". A professional law enforcement agent should have acted differently. Wouldn't a real cop stay and make sure that the scene of the crime isn't spoiled so the investigation can clear him/her of any wrong-doing? Someone mentioned calling for 'back up'... that's what cops are supposed to do isn't it? If in fact Reisig punched a cop and if this cop knew about that, don't you think that calling for back-up or alerting the HQ that the perp was spotted is the professional thing to do.

There are simply too many questions about the cop's actions that don't add up. Someone pointed out that we TV-ers are professional investigators, but we do come up with legitimate points and points that the proper authorities would come up with too I'm sure.

Anyway, I this type of violence is getting worse... be it the result of too much alcohol, violent TV shows, the influence of the evil West or whatever.

We're getting a couple of fiberglass sea kayaks made by a Thai guy in Trang ( a friend of a friend) who has his own yacht business.

A lot cheaper than the moulded plastic Feelfree kayaks that you see everywhere and far better for use in open water. If you're interested PM me for his email

There are a lot of Thais who rip-off patented kayak designs. If you have no problem with the illegality of this, then you can get a fiberglass kayak fairly cheaply.

From what I've seen, these fiberglass boats are not built very well and they are often heavier that their plastic versions.

I have been in this country for several years and along with my Thai wife have noticed that it's slowly turning to <deleted>.

I don't give a toss what people think, this crime should be punished.

If the justice system (what a contradiction in terms) doesn't have the balls to do something, then why don't some of the the senior cops who are losing trucks loads of face over this, just give a shoot to kill order over this pathetic excuse for a human being, and nail the Thai cops arse with a few round to the head.

As for all the 'if ya don't like it them leave gang', don't break into a sweat, we ARE leaving.

What complete and utter cr_ap this situation is.

We are out of here as fast as we can organize it.

Burnie.

I hear ya Burnie. I feel stuck here. I've invested 15 years of my life and all of my money in a country that apparently doesn't want honestly want me here. In spite of running a very successful tour business and paying my staff several times what they would make elsewhere, I'm constantly reminded that I'm a 'farang', a term which I hate be called. I pay a ton of taxes, yet the tax folks still want more from time to time. I do everything 'by the book', so why am I targeted? Hmm, let me guess.

I would leave tomorrow if I could, but alas, until I can recoup my life's savings, I'm stuck.

I do hope that this latest episode of outright murder at the hands of a cop affects tourism. Thailand isn't the Land of Smiles in my eyes. It's dangerous and the future doesn't look very bright.

Well, in an article in The Nation today titled "Cop executed my Best Friend", it seems like the cop is guilty of premeditated murder. From everything I have read so far, I cannot see any reason to let him out on bail. I would not be the least bit surprised if he disappears shortly.

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