Dear Editor – I congratulate the RSIPF one again teaching music to young people as part of a pro-active community policing initiative.
This was done previously in 1998 when the members of the police band helped in a similar way with a group of young, interested musicians.
The then British High Commissioner contributed sheet music and I wrote to the US Army Marine Corps to see if they would help the police with musical instruments to aid the budding musicians.
The Australian Army, to the best of my knowledge, did help with one or two instruments.
When I gave me testimony to the TRC Commission one of the Commissioner’s was from Chile and a country at that time which had rather a bad reputation in terms of reported human rights abuses in terms of the police using excessive force in public order controls.
During my talks with this particular Commissioner we talked about the use of force as was then being reported in Chile and she was surprised by what I told her when I said my best weapon in the police armoury during my time as the Commissioner of Police was the RSIPF Band.
She seemed surprised asked why and I explained that proactive policing was best displayed by the band reaching out to the community in support of community policing and I cited many examples of the band having given public displays and accompanied community policing teams to St Joseph’s Mission and even travelled to do similar work at Auki.
Frank Short
Former police commissioner
Bangkok, Thailand
