No coordination key fault in cop debacle
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.