Police Brutality
Nothing incites the western mind more than images of police brutality; those entrusted with upholding the highest standards of the law who break faith with those to whom they are mandated to protect and serve. Images of riots, beatings, bigotry, and racism flood the mind like TV news reels from humanity’s darker moments in history. It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to face such injustice.
I’ve been the victim of police brutality… It’s true. I know what it’s like to have my skin define how I’m treated. Police corruption is a way of life here in Cambodia – power used to exploit both the rich and the poor. I’ve suffered such treatment; on the streets, in open public. To understand the circumstances you have to first understand the context.
Police do not sit in squad cars waiting waiting to pursue criminals and give them their due justice. Cops here loiter; loiter on street corners and intersections in groups of 4 to 8. If you catch their eye, drive a little funny, look a little too rich or poor, whatever, they walk out into the street waving their batons and pull you over to interrogate you, citing trumped up charges and accusations in an effort to extort as much as they can which is always pocketed for alcohol, brothels, or other systems of entertainment. For the poor 50 cents is about all they can extract. From foreigners they may demand up to 20 dollars.
I happened to by driving along innocently one day on my motor-scooter when a blue suit stepped out onto the street. I was part of the usual swarm of motor-scooter drivers swamping the road and I did what every born-and-bred Cambodian does when faced by a pair of beady eyes sighting down the end of a ruddy baton; I avoided eye-contact, adopted the “who me?†expression, and at the last minute swerved left and throttling the accelerator. As I sped passed him, his disbelief expelled itself in a cloud of Khmer profanity that fowled the air like a 30-year old diesel bomber. In a desperate attempt to exact retribution he reached out and actually slapped my wrist as I shot passed to freedom. I was incensed!! He SLAPPED me!! And for what?! Because I refused to comply to extortion and bribery bred by the greed of their corrupt system! How DARE HE! I will not suffer such injustice! But I stayed the hand of vengeance; and the hands of the drivers around me who rallied to my unjust treatment pledging their willingness to see the corrupt perpetrator brought to a swift justice on the street. Brutality begets brutality, and while I myself may have suffered that pain and humiliation I choose to bare it with the same dignity of all who have ever suffered tyranny and instead offer grace and peace in return.
