On police brutality

Crime rates are pretty high during Christmas, so this is not off-topic, is it?

I don't think my blog has ever been this alive before, so forgive me for posting every now and then today. It's just, I don't have anything much to do, so I spend time thinking (in between the pages of the manga I am reading), and sometimes those thoughts have merit so I blog them.

Anyway, a few days ago, December 16 (Oblation run and before the centennial lantern parade, so I won't forget), I covered a crime story along with three group mates for my BC132 (Broadcast documentary) class.

We camped out in Camp Karingal in QC, the CIDU headquarters to be precise, from 7 pm till around 11 pm. We transferred to Station 10 of the QCPD in Kamuning at around 11 but decided to return to CIDU after about 15 minutes of sitting idly.

It was promising to be a peaceful night. Until, around 1 am, the phone in the CIDU rang informing us of an encounter between the anti-carnapping unit of QCPD and two "riding-in-tandem" robbers. Both robbers were killed.

I won't tell you the gruesome details of the crime scene. (That was my second crime coverage, so the shock wasn't really much, but it's enough to turn the stomachs of the uninitiated) But I noted something which made me really think.

The robbers were armed, of course. They took a scooter and led the police to a merry chase to *that* road (I won't mention where). But the position of their bodies caught my attention.

First, they abandoned the scooter they nabbed. I think the bodies were two to three meters away from the vehicle.

Their positions indicate that they weren't in the offensive. In fact, they were running away.

Another: the shots they took were fatal. Actually, both robbers died of head shots (I told you it was gruesome).

So what's my point, you ask? The robbers were escaping when they were shot. In the head. By the respondent police unit.

Some would say they deserve it. But (I'm not justifying robbery or anything), let's think about it. There are objective conditions which would have led them to resort to robbery. Poverty, mayhap. Man is not inherently evil, there are circumstances which drive us to do what we do.

So perhaps the robbers were in the wrong. But we need to understand their reasons instead of merely painting them black. And that's where police interrogation comes in, along with due process. If you ask me, their lives were too high a price to pay for whisking off a scooter. It wasn't balanced.

That brings me to my second point. Why aim for the head? Why aim to kill them? Granted, they were armed, but there's such a thing called "shoot to disable," where you aim for the arms and the legs of your quarry. In fact, that's a more difficult shot to execute than aiming for the head...which was the case in this particular story.

Besides, if my observations were correct, even if the robbers were armed, they were in the process of running away. Not fighting. So there wasn't really any real danger involved. Deaths could have been prevented had the police acted responsibly.

Where's the justice in that? There was no due process involved. You did not bring them in; you chose to silence them forever. The rule of the gun took over.

It's a challenge to the police force of the country. To serve and protect us Filipinos, and to avoid deaths when it can be prevented. Being a criminal doesn't make you inhuman. At least, in the case of petty crimes such as theft and robbery.

One's life is too high a price to pay for that. Or was that the message, to scare off would-be criminals? That's a disappointing logic which treats human lives with impunity.

I think we ought to reconsider. Even those who hate wrongdoers so much. Let's not stereotype them or anything as naturally evil. Then maybe we'll understand the country's situation better.

P.S. It's Christmas and I'm thinking dark and heavy thoughts. Will there be a moment when I won't think of such anymore?