There are a couple of things that you should know about the police in Thailand: They take themselves very seriously and you better not criticize them in the press or you are going to get some visits that you do not want from them. I can understand how officers end up feeling like everything they do is important even when it is stupid, because if you are a police officer or even if you just have one in your family, the rules for you change a lot in that you don't really have to obey them anymore. I'll get into that at another time but it is a bit frightening how much freedom you have to do whatever you want when you have a copper in the family.
The police are always trying to convince the public that they are actually doing their jobs so recently an article was written about how they had developed new tactics for dealing with belligerently drunk foreigners.
These images were all taken from a publication called "The Pattaya Mail" and it is not something I would normally read. This has been making the rounds because it is such a completely absurd series of tactics that the police have developed and it is even more absurd that they would brag about it to the press. To me it is also insulting that they would have "drunk tourists" in the title but live here for a little while and you will start to understand that about the Thai government officials. They love tourism money but hate tourists and they also have this extremely untrue idea in their heads that only the tourists are the ones that get drunk and cause problems. Their number one in the world for road fatalities, most of which are drunk driving Thai people, would indicate otherwise.
I don't know who decided that this sort of approach to a drunk person on the beach (or anywhere else) would actually work but the obviously staged pictures are pretty damn funny.
Imagine if you will that you are drunk enough that just the words from police officers are not enough to calm you down and comply, well now you are going to be faced with a phalanx of Thai police with long sticks meant to pin you down. Now simple physics would indicate that this is a very ineffective way of bringing someone down because all they would have to do is smack the long stick away and presuming it is made of substandard materials the likes of which a laundry stand would be made of - which it probably is - it would bend very easily. If it is made of a more robust material, it is going to be too heavy for the officer to effectively use it. But that is not what the press wants the people to see so instead we get this funny image of them being 100% successful.
Just look at the perp! He can't move at all and immediately goes into a prone position including keeping his arms at his sides. Also in the pictures prior to this one he had a fake knife in his hand.. where did that go? Also, if you know anything about how strong your arms are or just a person's arms are, the awkward fully-extended grip the two officers have on the long sticks would be easily gotten out of by a strong and able bodied person who was panicking on the ground. I do like how the commander is behind them clearly managing the situation though. He has his hand on his pistol and is the only person in this group that has anything that would really deescalate the situation.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if the perp just tried to run there is no chance that a bunch of cops that are carrying heavy metal spears and or a riot shield is going to be able to catch him. Those really tight uniforms have to be movement restricting as well. Don't get me started on the fact that polished dress shoes are less than useless on almost all terrain.
5 cops wearing church clothes and carrying 30-40 pounds of extra gear chasing down a criminal with trainers and a T-shirt on? My money is on the criminal.
I like the photo of the coppers on their motorized scooters or Segway i think they are called? How are they packing a 4 meter long calming stick on that thing? The entire scenario it just extremely funny and absurd. But this is not a spoof, this is a real press released in Thailand about new tactics the police are going to use but I can assure you, they will never use this. In situations like this the police use the same tactics that all other police use: Overwhelming numbers. Also, for the most part the police are not necessary in these sorts of situations since the general public is normally more than willing to take down a drunk idiot on their own and just leave the remains for the police to handle.
The article from Pattaya is trying their best to not make fun of the police because you aren't really allowed to do that in this country. The wording they use suggests that they were kind of forced to write this article and are doing their best to not make fun of the police department. They don't really have to though, these pictures alone are a laughing stock and everyone is talking about it here for reasons the police hadn't intended.
But seriously. Who thought this would be a good idea?