A police officer in the North Sumatra capital of Medan is facing disciplinary sanctions for allegedly taking a bribe from a driver he stopped on the street and spitting on another.
Both incidents were caught on videos that have gone viral recently, with one post on Facebook having received over 1.2 million views.
“Police force, this is very dangerous. Please look into this police officer. He received bribes [with the assistance of] a civilian, they rode a motorcycle together. The civilian wore a blue shirt, I filmed him earlier. Please make this viral all over Indonesia,” the man filming the incident can be heard saying in the video.
Local media outlets have identified the police officer as Rasoki Siregar, who is from Medan Police’s Traffic Unit. According to reports, Rasoki was first filmed as he stopped a white Toyota Agya on MT Haryono Street in Medan on Saturday afternoon, and then riding on the backseat of a motorcycle driven by a civilian, who has been identified as M. Wahyu Ikhsan.
According to North Sumatra Police’s spokesman Tatan Dirsan Atmaja, Rasoki got off the motorcycle and scolded the Agya driver for not wearing a seatbelt and requested for his driver’s license and vehicle registration (STNK). After checking the documents, Rasoki asked the driver to move forward to avoid congestion.
Tatan said Rasoki had asked Ikhsan to return the driver’s license to the Agya driver, which the police officer presumably confiscated prior. A female passenger got out of the Agya and handed Ikhsan IDR10K (US$0.63).
“After receiving the driver’s license, the Agya car moved in front of the Yaris car and the driver started recording the altercation between Rasoki and the Yaris driver,” Tatan said.
The Toyota Yaris with a racing exhaust had passed by Rasoki, who asked the driver to pull over and then rebuked him for not wearing a seatbelt. The two got into an argument, which was filmed in the above video.
Tatan said that Rasoki warned the Yaris driver of the dangers of not wearing a seatbelt, to which the latter, according to Tatan, replied: “Just let me crash. You cops are just money grabbers.”
“The argument got heated. It made Rasoki angry and he spat on the Yaris driver,” Tatan said, as quoted by Detik.
An official investigation by the Medan Police concluded that Rasoki was guilty for spitting on the Yaris driver.
“[There was proof that] he spat on the Yaris car driver. He will be transferred out of Medan Police,” Medan Police’s Chief of Profession and Security unit Herwansyah Putra said yesterday.
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