Evil police? A big misunderstanding!

A few days ago the once retired but recently back on board again temporary deputy commissioner of police, Alan Lau Yip Shing, sent an internal letter to the police force to comfort and encourage them on their contribution in the operation dealing with the Hong Kong's ever biggest social movement in the past three months. Being the second man to the police commissioner, it is alright for Lau to cheer up his team in the hope to earn the continuous support from the team as the movement seems to be unlikely to die out in the near future. Indeed this is the expected role on Lau for his reunion with the police force again even after his retirement due to his past experience in the operation on the Korean farmers' protest on the WTO meeting held in Hong Kong back in 2005.

In Lau's letter, he accused the people from sectors in political party, lawmaker, religion, media, education and social welfare attacked the ruling of the government for the sake of their political purposes and interests. He further questioned why the same police force was rated as among the few best in the Asia just back three months ago but now became what is alleged as the evil police.

It is absolutely alright to motivate his subordinates but if the content in Lau's letter really reflects his genuine thinking then his letter just gives away how innocent and naive of the second man to the police chief is.

Any police force in the world is the law enforcement arm of any regime in the world. Therefore police force is part of the constitution and establishment. It's fundamental role is very simple, ie., to safeguard the regime against mostly internal challenges including those from the outlaws and anti-governmental activists. So whenever there is any anti-governmental activity, it is always the police force out there to combat them. If people has neglected this ugly part of the police force then it is just a big misunderstanding.

On the other hand, the police force has been doing its job in maintaining the law and order in Hong Kong and the crime rate is among the few lowest countries or areas in the region, at least prior to the outbreak of the massive social movement since this June. Hong Kong police force really deserved the reputation which it earned from its hard work throughout the years. To be fair, even during these few months of social unrest, Hong Kong police force is still working hard in doing their jobs on the maintenance of the daily law and order against the outlaws.

What marked the difference on the image of the police force is their role on the suppression on the social movements since four years ago from the Occupy Central. Being part of the establishment, police force is repeatedly used by the administration in cracking down all unwanted voices and actions. This was when the police force got its curse as evil police. It was CY Leung's and now Carrie Lam's administration that put the police force in direct confrontation with the public. Indeed they are the one to be blamed.

In fact people should also distinguish the police force's management from the individual police officers. The latter acts according to the instructions given from the former. The on-site commander should be held responsible for the tactics and deployment of forces. Excessive aggressive actions could have been taken in order to brown-nosing the superiors or even Beijing. Naturally there are some police officers have overly exercised his force at his own discretion. This is really an undesirable behaviour.

While people is accusing the police force is evil, it is better to target precisely who the black sheep are but at the end of the day, it should be the one who is responsible for bringing up this chaos be accountable for the blame.

So don't blame the police force. They are just like a dual faces character.  Whether they are evil just depends on which face you are looking at. Remember, your great hound is always excellent and the difference lies on whether it is hunting for you or hunting you.