No coordination key fault in cop debacle
Evi Mariani and Sandy Darmosumarto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A shooting incident that injured two undercover police officers has blown a major National Police antidrug operation to nab a big time dealer in an international syndicate.
The massive blunder, in which a regular city policeman suspected that a crime was taking place and barged into a hotel shooting the two detectives, has prompted the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) to improve coordination among police units in the war against drug crimes.
"The incident has taught us a valuable lesson about improving our coordination in fighting drug crimes," BNN chief Comr. Gen. Togar Sianipar said on Wednesday.
"It's a bit of a dilemma, though. We are supposed to limit the number of people who know about the undercover operations (because not everyone can be trusted to keep it secret)," he said. "But in the future, the unit commanders should be informed, or perhaps we must define which operation is under which level of command so there will be no overlapping."
Sianipar said he respected any effort from any police unit to pursue the war against drug crimes.
"I appreciated the recent arrest of another drug syndicate member by the South Jakarta Police," he said.
"But why did the Central Jakarta officers insist on breaking into the room even though the hotel's duty manager had already informed them that there were several policemen in there on a case? It's bizarre."
A policeman from the antidrug unit of the Central Jakarta Police precinct, Brig. Fauzan, shot and injured two undercover officers, Adj. Sr. Comr. Wagimin Wira Wijaya and Brig. Tony Gardianto, in a room at the Hotel Millenium in Central Jakarta on Monday evening.
The injured officers were members of a joint team of the National Police and the Jakarta Police under the supervision of BNN.
The team had arrested a suspected Nigerian drug dealer carrying 1.2 kilograms of heroin-filled capsules on Sunday at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. The suspect said that he was supposed to hand over the heroin to a dealer in Jakarta at the hotel.
While the team and the suspect were waiting for the dealer, three policemen from the precinct, who claimed they had received a tip-off on a possible drug transaction at the hotel, knocked on the door and then tried to break into the room.
The duty manager at the hotel said that he had already told the Central Jakarta policemen that there were officers in the room on a drug case. But the policemen insisted on going up to the room.
The Central Jakarta Police chief, Sr. Comr. Sukrawardi Dahlan, said that his subordinates were just doing their job.
"I have ordered all my subordinates to fight against drug crimes seriously. They can use their own initiative in their effort to fight the crimes," he said, adding that he was having a meeting on general elections security at the Jakarta Police headquarters when the incident took place on Monday.
All policemen involved in the incident, including the source who tipped them off, have been under investigation by the Jakarta Police's internal affairs officers.
Jakarta Police chief, Insp. Gen. Makbul Padmanagara, said earlier that the investigation was necessary in order to check if the incident was purely a result of miscommunication or some kind of a setup to blow the operation.
The National Police deputy spokesman, Brig. Gen. Soenarko Ardan, said that despite the incident, police would continue building joint operation teams in an effort to fight transnational narcotics cases.