Abuse by the police will go on

THE EDITOR: Why am I not surprised by the petty demonstration (read “abuse”) of “power” displayed by members of the police and defence force, as reported in the newspapers. Surely, given the past histories of these two entities, this was to be expected?

For those who` do not know, members of an armed patrol forced two homeless men to drink copious quantities of alcohol, run alongside the patrol vehicle, do push-ups under the threat of being shot for not complying.

Lest you think this is an exaggeration, the leaked video showed one of the officers switching off the safety of his weapon and pointing it at one victim.

Oddly enough, the video was filmed by the occupants of the patrol vehicle. Clearly secrecy was not an issue, and filming and subsequent release of the video indicated (to me) pride in their behaviour.

One can provide numerous explanations for this behaviour. Yet, drilling down to the absolute bedrock, one can find that it will only be explained by two things:

1. The low education level (and therefore lack of higher thinking skills) of recruits.

2. Power corrupts. Perceived power is not excluded – research has confirmed this.

There is a cautionary lesson to this incident. Expect more of this. This is by no means an isolated incident. Two things will happen, despite the promises of the Commissioner of Police that “we do not want such individuals wearing a uniform:”

* Further abuse will be hidden, or not exposed on social media.

* There will be additional and serious threats against victims, especially with regard to exposing the abuse. In fact, it will not surprise me to find out that individual incidents of abuse will escalate in severity to the detriment of the victim.

Members of the public going about their lawful business, even in lockdown conditions, are at risk. I expected nothing less.

MOHAN RAMCHARAN

Birmingham, England