Police brutality

Letters

THE police force is an important institution in any country.
It protects and guides citizens accordingly.
Once a person commits a crime or breaks any law, police then step in to deal with him or her.
Some police officers act beyond standard practice.
They take advantage of ordinary people, destroy their properties and worst of all, spit betelnut on someone’s face.
That is a very animalistic behaviour.
I witnessed this on two different occasions at Gerehu.
The first one was between a taxi driver and police officers next to the main bus stop.
An officer spat a mouthful of betelnut right onto the face and body of a taxi driver who stand helplessly.
Members of the public who saw what happened were shocked.
The other occurred on the opposite side of the same bus stop at Gerehu.
It happened to the driver of the Route 9 bus, I was in.
I saw officers on this Chinese-donated vehicle approach the bus driver, ask him if he knew how to drive, hurled verbal abuse at him and then landed a punch on his face.
He then copped a mouthful of betelnut spit from one of the officers s we watched helplessly.
The majority of our people are now in great fear of police, rather than criminals.
This is so unlike the past.
This is an appeal to the police hierarchy to train and their officers to treat and talk to the people with respect, according to the laws of this country.
We hope to see change in the near future.

Nongii Eniil Ngalkhay
Dulumb Koiyange