A female police officer who drew a lot of eyes with a swimsuit pic set her socials to private this afternoon after telling all the keyboard warriors to get over it.
Before making her Instagram inaccessible to the public, Lt. Patarasaya Rerkrut, aka Lt. Viking for her nickname, last night told those complaining she should not share attractive photos on social media that becoming a cop didn’t mean she had to “cut off” her personality.
“I like to try new things, get out of [my] comfort zone, finding new opportunities for myself,” she wrote on Instagram, where she shared reliably anodyne photos. “I never thought I would become a cop, and cut off my personality for things I like in order to fit in a society that dictates how you should act.”
She explained that she posed in the one-piece white swimsuit for a contest that ultimately never took place. She also said the photo was her way of challenging stereotypes while expressing herself.
“Hello, it’s 2022,” she continued. “What we do in our work does not reflect with how we look. I grew up in a conservative society, but believe that there should be a balance. My parents are accepting and find it okay.”
Patarasaya did not respond to a message seeking comment.
After she shared the swimsuit image Thursday, her post was inundated with scornful comments saying that “she is a policewoman who is behaving inappropriately” and that doing this is deemed “disrespectful”.
It wasn’t clear why she appeared to set her account to private and delete all of her photos early Friday afternoon. She also set her Facebook account to private.
Patarasaya is an investigator at the Don Mueang Police Station and doubles as a spokesperson for the Royal Thai Police.
She became an object of public attention after appearing at a high-profile press briefing about the case of Thitisan “Joe Ferrari” Utthanaphon, the police chief accused of torturing and murdering a suspect in his custody.
Tabloid attention quickly fixed on her as the latest belle du jour to gush over in sweaty headlines which, in some cases, overshadowed the actual case.
But just like a woman who captivated the nation as a young reality TV contestant only to flee the country recently on the heels of a sex tape, Patarasaya got a wake-up call on the behavior society demands from women.
