City police gear up for next year's election
City police gear up for next year's election
JAKARTA (JP): Jakarta Police will be busy with political
demonstrations next year due to the general election scheduled
for May, City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Hamami Nata has predicted.
Speaking Tuesday at the end-of-year press conference, Hamami
said that the police forces are ready to anticipate such a
possibility.
He called on the people to keep cool and alert because the
political climate might be a little hotter before and after the
election.
According to police records, there were 289 demonstrations
this year, including 142 staged by workers, 62 by ordinary people
(complaining about land disputes), 55 by students, 17 by mass
organizations and 11 by political parties.
Hamami said that drug-related cases, armed robberies, and
students brawls would also still be pivotal next year.
Cases relating to drugs, especially Ecstasy, would possibly
boom next year, he said. "Drug criminals will join together into
bigger groups." But he refused to call the groups as organized
syndicates and said that the prediction was based on this year's
trend and the fact that the business was very lucrative.
This year, Jakarta police arrested 37 people for possessing a
total of 105,000 Ecstasy pills and 10 people for possessing 72.2
kilograms of dried marijuana. "All the people, including Ecstasy-
suspect Zarina, and the evidence have been sent to the
Prosecutors' Office."
Many Ecstasy smugglers and traffickers have been caught in
Greater Jakarta. Some cases are handled by the City Police and
some are handled by the National Police Headquarters. Therefore,
the number of Ecstasy pills confiscated by the City Police is
only 105,000 out of 255,485 pills seized by the National Police
Headquarters.
Robberies
Hamami also predicted that armed robberies, especially against
bank customers and taxi drivers, would still be high next year
despite crackdowns on gun possession.
He said police have arrested 16 men and confiscated 12 guns in
27 armed robberies ."None of the guns belonged to the police."
Students brawls, which caused at least nine deaths this year
would continue next year, he said. "We have handled 57 students
brawls and arrested six students for killing other students."
The Jakarta Post recorded at least 15 students as being killed
in separate brawls this year.
The number of crimes reported to the police declined by 15.5
percent to 16,756 cases this year from 19,827 cases last year, he
said.
"It means a crime was committed in every 48 minutes and 38
seconds this year or seven minutes less than last year," he said.
He said police had shot dead 46 criminals for resisting
arrests, saying that most of the criminals were former convicts.
"Experience teaches us former convicts need special attention,"
he said.
The number of traffic accidents increased 21.6 percent to
1,364 accidents this year from 1,123 accidents last year, he
said. "The number of people killed in traffic accidents increased
this year to 563 from 462 last year."
He said this year's accidents caused Rp 1.69 billion in losses
or 14.6 percent higher than that of last year.
On Tuesday morning, Hamami launched police operation Operasi
Lilin (Operation Candlelight) to secure Christmas and New Year
Eve celebrations.
He said a total of 11,306 officers, including from the
military, are deployed to secure the year-end festivities.
Ambulances, fire trucks and police dogs are also being deployed,
he said. (jun)