An Indonesian police commissioner has proven to be unpopular among his subordinates and his higher ups due to his overreaction over somebody blocking his parking spot.
On Tuesday morning, Grand Commissioner Ekotrio Budhiniar, then head of the Administrative Training Center for the National Police Education Institute, reportedly lined up and whacked seven of his subordinates in the head with a police helmet because another car had blocked his parking spot at a police training center in Bandung, West Java.
Today, National Police Chief Tito Karnavian issued a circular announcing Ekotrio’s “mutation” from his post — another term for demotion — and his replacement by Grand Commissioner Bobyanto.
“It’s a form of stern action towards leadership who willingly acted arrogantly in giving a warning to his subordinates,” said National Police Chief Human Resources Assistant Inspector General Arief Sulistyanto while confirming the circular to the media, as quoted by Merdeka today.
All seven of Ekotrio’s victims suffered minor injuries to their heads and were treated at the training center’s clinic. Photos of the victims with their bandaged heads have gone viral since yesterday.
Tito’s circular did not make clear what position Ekotrio was demoted to.
People of authority (and their family) mistreating people they think are beneath them is unfortunately a common viral occurrence in Indonesia. Last year, the wife of a police general was investigated over a viral video in which she slapped an airport security officer after refusing to take off her watch at an X-ray checkpoint. A couple of weeks after that incident, there were two further assaults on airport security officers in Indonesia, both of them allegedly committed by military officers.
Have appropriate actions been taken to prevent such arrogance? Well, if anything, these actions have become normalized. For example, in light of the assaults on the airport security officers, Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta Airport instructed their security officers to “smile more” to avoid being slapped.
