Lawlessness

This is practically a sequence to the previous post. Cambodians have a penchant for cockfights. As in most countries, they are illegal but they nevertheless have an avid following especially in the countryside.

Police often look the other way but sometimes they do raid a fight. The other day in a district in Prey Veng province the police surrounded a fight to stop it and possibly seize the cocks.

In the process the district police chief drew his service weapon and fired a shot hitting an innocent bystander who was holding his child in his arms. News reports say the bullet hit the man in the temple and exited on the other side. The bystander was felled as if hit by lighning dropping his baby to the ground.

The police chief stated he only fired a warning shot in the air and the bullet must have ricocheted from a tree. This explanation is a typical Cambodian excuse. They come up with the most implausible excuses you can think of, often insulting the intelligence of people who can think logically. How can a bullet ricochet even if it is not directly shot in the air? If the gun is pointed even slightly upwards it is absolutely impossible for the bullet to ricochet back downwards hitting a bystander in such way that the projectile would enter the temple and exit the temple on the other side. It was a shot clearly fired at shoulder height, possibly with outstretched arm. It doesn’t take a criminologist to come to this conclusion.

Why would a policeman draw his weapon to break up a cockfight? This sounds just as if it had happened in the U. S. where trigger-happy cops are wont to shoot and kill unarmed African-Americans for minor infractions.

The local court invited the chief for an interrogation but the chief did not show up saying he was sick. This policeman needs to be arrested for at least involuntary manslaughter. If no further news will be read or heard within the next couple of weeks it is safe to assume that the affair will be swept under the carpet. Stay tuned.