Saturday 28 April 2007

Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick


Regardless of who is to blame for the trouble on the streets of Tallinn the Estonian police have come out of this very badly. The police force has been demonstrated to be poorly trained, lacking in discipline and eager to crack heads without much thought of who they might be cracking on the head.

One American friend of mine has been taking photos of the events as they unfold. He was standing to one side yesterday evening when he was physically threatened by a policeman and in his own words "almost made me soil my my khakis"!

But that was quite a non-event.

A German gentleman of retirement age who I know was walking near to the trouble area last evening on his way home after meeting some German friends - he had his son accompany him for reasons of safety. They were intercepted by police and when they protested about being manhandled one particulary arrogant uniformed thug sneered, "I am Estonian police and I can do what I want!" He then proceeded to beat the innocent pedestrian and his son with a riot baton before arresting them both and throwing them into police cells for the night. This German had been a serving officer in the German military for over 20 years and he knows a great deal more about discipline and order than the uniformed piece of shit that crossed his path.

The Estonian internal security apparatus is unwittingly falling into the trap of embodying the stereotype that Russia imposes on Estonia - a nation of ethno-Nazis. There are reports, both substantiated and unsubstantiated, of police hitting out at anyone who came within range of their batons.

Anyone who has lived in Estonia for any length of time will have noted how distinctly unprofessional the police are compared to there colleagues in northern Europe. Sloppy attitudes and boorishness are quite common. OK, they are underpaid and probably overworked but that does not excuse amateur performance in a job that demands the highest professional standards.

As for the arrests of the two unfortunates the official figures of 600 arrests might be easily explainable if every defenceless old man that the police came across last night was beaten about the head with a riot club.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm the guy in the khakis. I just want to say the cop who "threatened" us didn't do anything wrong. If we hadn't been so surprised/scared we might have understood him the first several times he said "Move!". Considering the fact that there was a riot going on and we shouldn't have been out "sight-seeing" in the first place, we would have had to share at least half the blame if we did get hit.