The Heroic Thai Policeman
His name is Police Sargent Adul. Watch this video and you will clearly see that a grenade was fired at police lines and hit the shield of a colleague. Adul hardly hesitated. He got up and attempted to kick the grenade away. Seconds later the grenade exploded and he was hidden by a cloud of smoke.
I first saw this video on a BBC World report by Jonathan Head. I had already heard claims by some that the policeman had dropped the grenade and blew himself up. This video clearly shows that this was not the case. As the video wasn’t available online at that time, I quickly put together these screen shots to show what really happened.
Shortly afterwards, I spotted some Thais tweeting my screenshot, but they had changed my words to say that the images clearly showed that the policeman had dropped the grenade and blew himself up. Then I got a call from a friend to say that protest leader Suthep was up on stage showing my screen shots and saying that the policeman had blown himself up. This is the same man that said protesters are not armed.
Fortunately, some Thais are honest and recognized the heroic act of this policeman in his valiant attempt to save his comrades.
As to the man himself, @ittipat_Rw tweeted last night that the policeman is in a safe condition and doctors say that he won’t lose his leg. That is really good news. I just hope that he now gets the recognition that he deserves.
I know I was hoping for too much to have this image on the front page of The Nation and the Bangkok Post this morning. They did both have the exact same picture showing the aftermath of the explosion. But neither paper had it as the lead story.
Is there a fund / paypal account to help the Policeman out ,
I hope he keeps his job but even in the West many lose their job after something like this because they cannot do the work anymore 🙁
A heroic thing to do yes, but would he still be seen in that light if he had managed to kick it away and it exploded near some bystanders or media crews? Looks from the angle that it could easily be about to be kicked towards the guy who took this video…
A real hero. I hope he gets well soon and makes a good recovery.
Such a nice change from the liars and crooks like Thaksin and Suthep.
I also will never buy another issue of the Bangkok Post or the Nation. I don’t even care about the protests particularly, I’m not one of those people who has taken sides, but this officer is clearly a hero and deserves to be lauded. These newspapers are so blatantly one-sided politically, I’m done with them.
Thanks for your detailed report Richard. It is amazing how some folks will distort the truth; they must have learned it from Jay Carney and Obama: ‘If you like your liar, you can keep your liar.’
Personally I will never buy either The Nation or BP ever again after this is over – if it ever is. Their coverage has been so one-sided, it’s laughable.