Police blunders and Media insensibility: Deadly partners
By Willie Galang
Published 24 August 2010, 15:02 • Tweet
Image © Reuters
First, my condolences to the affected families. Second, let me get this out of the way: Regardless of how intelligent, savvy, and well-equipped one country’s police force is, a gun-welding psychopath with intent to murder, will, almost always, be able to inflict harm first before police authorities can step in. Law enforcement is reactionary. The challenge is to prevent as many needless deaths as possible in hostage situations such as the tragic one that transpired in Manila yesterday. The so-called “Manila’s Finest” (an apparent misnomer in this generation) with their SWAT team in tow, failed to neutralize at the onset the lone hostage-taker despite several opportunities early in the day to do so. (A single, well-placed sniper shot during those times the gunman, former police officer Rolando Mendoza, 55, was out in the open would have saved everyone on the hijacked bus.)
The hostage crisis started Monday morning in Manila. By the time the 3:00 PM deadline that the bus hijacker imposed on everyone had passed, we hear reports that the indecisive police themselves were the ones continuously giving the disgruntled ex-cop time extension. Sometimes I can’t help but suspect the mainstream press (particularly the big networks with live 6:30 PM newscasts on free television) had a hand in all these “extensions” so the impasse and its resolution will hit their early evening broadcast for maximum ratings! People just love live carnage! Philippine President Benigno Aquino III promised a probe into this tragedy, (what else would he say?) and I hope they’ll look into this angle.
Image © AP
The end result of the hostage drama did spill-over to the live newscasts and what we saw shocked even the most jaded observers among us. Manila’s SWAT unit looked like bumbling idiots when they “stormed” the bus. (That’s the slowest “storming” I’ve seen in years.) I felt sadness and embarrassment when the heavily-armed police unit took an hour to get inside the bus when those teenaged-carjackers that they coddle in the streets of Manila can forcibly open an SUV in a matter of seconds. Media, (particularly Ron Gagalac and Jorge Cariño of ABS-CBN News) kept on patting their backs with their coverage, interjecting every several minutes or so in their reports that them reporters are braving the hard driving rain and potential hail of bullets just so they can bring the developing story LIVE! Oh, please. Do you have to tell us that? Such a huge turn-off! Even anchor-on-location Julius Babao had the temerity to attempt an interview with a Chinese embassy official on air in the midst of what’s transpiring. How about a little tact?
The problem is, almost everybody probably believes that it’s exactly media’s LIVE coverage of the arrest of the hostage-taker’s relatives (under suspicion of being in connivance with the hijacker) that ticked off and eventually set off the psychopath’s murderous rampage inside the bus. The competing TV news networks, in their bid to outdo each other in bringing dramatic live feeds to their viewers, conveniently forgot that the rogue cop is perhaps monitoring the developments on TV and/or radio inside the hijacked bus! And what the former policeman saw prompted him to start executing his hostages. What’s obvious here is that the Filipino press, particularly the media giants, do NOT know WHEN to effect a news embargo even if their lives, and the lives of innocent civilians, depended on it.
I think I’ve seen enough police stupidity and press insensitivity to last me a lifetime. Some criminals can be real dolts, but I think it’s just fair to expect that our police and our journalists to be at least a little smarter than them.
This article originally appeared here at williegalang.com at this specific URL:
http://williegalang.com/2010/08/24/police.blunders.media.insensibility
About this Weblog
My name is Willie Galang and I’m based in Manila. I comment on current events and popular culture plus share some personal stories as well.
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