While the families of many police officers criticized the Sunflower movement and called for an end to the occupation of the Legislative Yuan so that their loved ones could go home, the families of some officers hold a different view, saying that the system — not the protesters — was at fault.
Most of the 24-hour news channels in the nation recently ran reports of the Facebook posts of the daughter of Zhongzheng First Police Precinct Chief Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧), saying how sad and worried the family was when they saw more than 1,000 people protesting outside the station in Taipei on Friday last week, calling her father a liar and demanding that he step down over a controversial move to disperse the crowd in front of the Legislative Yuan after the legislative siege ended.
However, another netizen wrote on Facebook: “It would be a legitimate move even if the crowd were to tear down the precinct’s office building.”
Photo: Chen Kuan-pei, Taipei Times
Both the parents of the netizen, surnamed Chiu (邱), are police officers.
In an interview with the Taipei Times, Chiu said that she not only supports the protesters’ call for Fang to step down, but she also disagrees with the families of officers who urged the protesters who kept the legislature under siege for 23 days to quickly withdraw so that the officers could go home and be with their families.
“I totally understand how it feels to be a member of the family of a police officer. I understand the concern, especially when the officer is dispatched to the scene of a demonstration, because my mother — who is more than 50 years old — is an officer and is often dispatched to demonstrations,” Chiu said. “However, I think the officers’ families were appealing to the wrong people when they called on the demonstrators to quickly end their protest.”
It is wrong to stop the public from protesting because people have the right of assembly, Chiu said.
If police officers and their families are truly concerned about the working conditions of officers, they should make their appeal to their superiors and push for reforms of duty and shift assignments, Chiu added.
“My mom is more than 50 years old and often sent to demonstrations. I have seen police officers the same age as my mom or older who have to stand on the front line for a long time. Frankly, I still feel sad whenever I see that,” Chiu said. “So, I think it would be a better idea to make it a rule that officers beyond a certain age should not serve on the front line during demonstrations or they should be assigned fewer hours on more strenuous missions.”
Chiu added that it is especially saddening to see elder officers and protesters pushing and shoving each other.
She concurred with the comments by some officers’ families that most officers are good, hard-working people, but that demonstrators seem to view them as their enemies.
However, there should be a system to separate the “bad cops” from the “good cops,” she said.
“No one can deny that there are officers who use excessive force when they evict protesters, but they can always hide behind good cops, forcing everyone to share the public condemnation. Naturally, the officers who did not do anything wrong would feel upset with those accusations,” she said. “If there is no system to hold bad cops responsible for their wrongdoing, they will continue to hide behind their colleagues, pretending to be nice people, while the good, law-abiding cops suffer.”
Asked why she thought Fang should resign, Chiu said the police chief had promised the night before that police would leave the demonstrators alone, but later said they should leave or face eviction.
“He is not an ordinary cop — he is a high-ranking officer who has power, so he should be held responsible for his controversial decision — as well as his other controversial behavior in the past,” Chiu said. “The protesters were not the only victims [of Fang’s decision], but the cops on the front line who could only follow his orders also suffered.”
Another woman surnamed Huang (黃), whose father retired from the force earlier this year, agreed, saying the families of police officers should not hold protesters responsible for the officers having to work long hours.
“The officers’ families appealed to the wrong people,” Huang said. “Long working hours and irregular shifts have long been a problem for the police. Something has to change and reform should start from the inside.”
Huang said when her father was still working, he would sometimes get off work at 10pm, but had to go back to work again at 7am.
“Even my mom sometimes got confused about my dad’s shift schedule,” she said. “It’s a problem that’s existed for a long time and people should not blame it on the demonstrators.”
Huang said that officers should push for the creation of a police union — which is currently banned — and fight for their rights.
“With a union, officers can push for a better shift system and during protests officers could even pressure government officials to respond and shorten their working hours,” Huang said. “I think that forming a union to push for change within the system is the only reasonable way to protect officers’ rights.”
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