‘PC bitchslap’ is no hero. The police need better training

The ongoing controversy over whether am exasperated policeman should have slapped a tourist caught skinny dipping because he was taking his own sweet time to get out of the water, has revealed once again just how we are unable to separate our knee-jerk reaction about foreigners when it comes to right and wrong.

The argument goes something like this, “the police officer was right to slap him, how dare that man (a foreigner) defy the police by not getting out of the water? Are we going to let these people do what they like in our country?!” this is usually followed by a litany of things that the person would have done to the skinny dipper himself.

The pro-slapping faction also had a whole host of other reasons why they felt that the police officer was justified, including bizarre comparisons with the way American police officers behave, which is hardly the best example at the moment. In the States, the issue of police brutality, especially against minorities who are inevitably looked upon with suspicion, leading to numerous cases of black men being wrongfully killed by a police officer, has created an enormous amount of racial tension.

But the comparison is extremely tenuous… US police officers never know whether the person they have pulled over or stopped in the street will pull out a gun and shoot them; it is a reality they have to face every working day. Let us not forget that “the right to bear arms”, i.e. to carry a licensed gun, is legal in the States thanks to the Second Amendment. It is for this reason that any sudden movement as if to pull out a weapon and/or refusal to co-operate by, for example, not getting out of a car when asked, brings down the full force of the law on the person under suspicion.

Would you feel safe if a police officer comes along to tell you to turn the noise down because you are disturbing the neighbours, and you end up being at the receiving end of his fist?

And even then, internal inquiries are carried out to establish whether the officer acted in self-defense or whether he was simply trigger-happy. How this can remotely be compared to the situation in Malta is anyone’s guess.

I doubt that our local officers suspected that the skinny-dipper was carrying some kind of weapon, unless perhaps he had managed to get hold of a water pistol to spray at the police.

But we do not even need to try and guess what happened because the video footage taken by other tourists who happened to witness the whole thing, replete with astonished commentary, is there for all to see. As the recording shows, the police officer in question, who was stomping all over the sand in frustration, was clearly annoyed that he was having to handle yet another guy who had decided to swim in the buff. He handed him his clothes (or rather, threw the clothes into the water) and ordered him to get dressed.

Up until that point the whole thing looked like something out of a comedy sketch. It was when the police officer finally lost his patience and snapped, hitting the obviously inebriated tourist who was having trouble standing up, that the atmosphere changed.

OK, granted, it was hardly a punch to the face, and more of what LovinMalta.com described as a ‘bitch slap’. But we need to be careful when it comes to what the police can or cannot do when confronting uncooperative civilians. Because once you say that it is perfectly fine for a police officer to slap a tourist in the face for something so relatively harmless as taking too long to get out of the sea after swimming in his birthday suit, then what else will be considered “permissible”?

As always happens with these types of justifications, you are entering into questionable territory where it will be difficult to draw the line. After all, the tourist in question was hardly resisting arrest or trying to attack the policeman, which is why so many were taken aback by the slap and the people videotaping could be clearly heard expressing their own sheer disbelief: “what…? he slapped him?!”

Let us not forget that they are there to uphold the law, and not to break it themselves.

I think those that are applauding the police officer and jumping to his defence because he was suspended need to think very carefully about what they are saying. Would you consider it OK for a police officer to “get physical” if he pulls you over to give you a traffic fine and you just happen to catch him on a bad day when he is feeling particularly short-tempered?

Would you feel safe if a police officer comes along to tell you to turn the noise down because you are disturbing the neighbours, and you end up being at the receiving end of his fist? What degree of violence should a police officer be allowed to exert? Can he slap you, punch you, rough you up? Or is everything allowed as long as the person being pushed around is a “foreigner”?

I suggest that rather than making the police officer into some kind of lopsided “hero”, the public should insist on better training so that officers can learn how to curb their temper and handle these minor infringements in a more professional way. Let us not forget that they are there to uphold the law, and not to break it themselves.