Police Roadblocks: The Evolution Part 2

Read Part 1 here

Roadblocks in 1990s

There are 2 circumstances where I have noticed the police would setup have roadblocks – one is when they are on the lookout for escaped criminals or convicts (quite rare though) whilst another to catch those been driving vehicles without proper papers (license or road tax).

In the 1990s, I ride a bike to college or thereafter to work and when I used the motorbike lanes along the Kesas Highway; I am often greeted by a police roadblock on the motorbike lanes – just after one of the rest areas.

The police put up this road block at the right spot, just when one had taken a sharp corner, heavy bushes on both sides of the lane (to hide their presence & Land Rover) and once one had completed the corner, the roadblock abruptly comes in view. It’s too late for anyone who is thinking of making a quick u-turn or tries to avoid the road blocks for the policemen can see them from afar and can give chase.

All motorcyclists will be stopped and checked for their licenses and road taxes. Roadblocks on the motorbike lanes is simple – no poles or barriers whatsoever. Just couple of policemen on the side of the lanes with one (often with a large stick or sometimes but rarely with submachine gun) couple meters away in case any bikers tries to break away from the roadblocks.

(The kind of idiots that need to be stopped by the police at roadblocks and thrown off deep in the ground. Image source: Antkilling)

Such roadblocks does not bother me much because it is manned only on the evenings (when most of us are heading back home) and it takes less than 3 minutes for them check the papers and allows us to continue with our ways.

Never in my “motorcycling days” have I seen road blocks in the morning rush hours. There are traffic policemen in the morning on the side of the road to catch those drivers using the emergency lanes (the queue jumpers). Often caught at these road blocks are mat rempits, illegal immigrants and youngsters riding without license or sometimes without helmets.

I rode a slick 2-stroke Yamaha bike to work and I made sure that I had papers up to date and in a place where it is easy to be retrieved. I also had proper attire when I on the bike – a tear-proof, water proof biker jacket, gloves and an expensive helmet.

It’s for safety and also to “impress” others (ahem). Unfortunately it also impressed the policemen at the roadblock for I am always stopped – not to query on the license or road taxes (sometimes they never bother to ask anyway). I would be stopped because they wanted to know where I bought my jacket or sometimes to check on my bike, something that I am too obliged to tell them.

Perhaps it is because they called me “abang” (big brother) – they maintained discipline and the friendly approach at all times (no “I am police, you are nothing” attitude).

Roadblocks in 1990s was little inconvenience but it was not so troublesome and it worked well to filter out the bad motorist & trouble makers from the rest

To be continued…

Radovan Caught

(Image source: The Guardian)

Radovan Karadzic, Europe’s most wanted man, arrested for war crimes after 12 years on the run.

From The Guardian:-

The charge sheet includes the murder of nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, after the supposedly UN-protected enclave fell to Bosnian Serb forces.

The former psychiatrist and aspiring poet is also charged with running death camps for non-Serbs, and the shelling and sniping on civilians in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in a siege that lasted more than three years.

Justice can wait (in this case, 12 years) but never fails to deliver. It waits too here in Malaysia.

DNA & Police Report

(DNA in huge “demand” – Image source: www.turbosquid.com)

Two entries in the internet, one in Malaysia Today (the obvious juicy one) and another in Malaysiakini, throws more doubt why the police (and the Government) are very insistent on a fresh DNA sample.

From Malaysia Today

The ‘evidence’ is ready. The semen specimen on Saiful’s underwear has been confirmed. The only problem would be if they allow an independent foreign expert to do an audit on the Chemistry Department’s findings, he or she might confirm that the specimen is ten years old and not dated 26 June 2008 as alleged.

So they need to exchange the September 1998 specimen with a new one dated July 2008. And that is why Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Syed Hamid Albar, and all those others, have asked Anwar to volunteer his new specimen. They need this new specimen to ‘prove’ that the semen on Saiful’s underwear is dated 26 June 2008 and not September 1998.

And Abdullah himself ‘confirmed’ this when he asked Anwar to volunteer his new specimen whereas the old specimen is good enough if it is just required for DNA profiling — only that it would not pass the test if an independent foreign expert was to audit the Chemistry Department’s ‘evidence’ and then come out with a report that says the specimen is ten years old.

Read further here

From Malaysiakini

The PM has been cheated. DNA degrades with time, but in perfect conditions it could last for several thousand years. It certainly would not last for millions of years, or even hundreds of thousands of years but certainly for a very short 10 years.

Researchers even retrieved DNA from the teeth of Neanderthal men, that’s over 40,000 year-old teeth.

Read further here

Anwar during his rally in Malacca jokingly said this

“The police have my DNA & my blood, the police has accuser in safe custody, 2 x 5, 5 x 2…” (you make the necessary connections lah)

Conspiracies aside, the police may have their own valid reasons for fresh DNA but until they give Anwar the actual police report of the accusations, there is little creditability in their request.

As what Anwar’s lawyer said, to give police report is an “elementary natural justice” that an accused “should have sight of the accusation, before being called upon to explain anything”.

Sivarasa quoted in Malaysiakini, as saying:-

The First Information Report – a complaint lodged with the police by an alleged victim of a crime – is a public document and should be made available to all persons affected by the report.

“To continue to expect the target of a criminal investigation to answer questions, supply information, and provide evidence in total ignorance of the circumstances of the offence alleged against him, is eerily reminiscent of an episode where a prisoner was blindfolded and handcuffed, and therefore totally unable to defend himself in any way and was then viciously attacked by the police themselves.”

When Pak Lah asks why Anwar is afraid of giving fresh DNA sample, I believe that the same can be asked of the police – what is it that the police are afraid of giving the police report to Anwar? Most of the facts have already brought to the open and been publically discussed anyway.

No wonder Anwar is suspicious of the request for fresh DNA. Who wouldn’t?