Another police issue of burning public interest is last weekend's clash between two cops, a constable and and an ASP. Constable Mark Rodriguez and ASP Aaron Gamboa had an encounter in Teakettle - which left each man saying that the other had abused him.
Now, this would be just a petty, run of the mill dispute, but these are cops and they are supposed to be members of a disciplined force. And they even broke with police regs and each gave multiple media interviews.
And whole lot of irregularities with this one, and today the Compol made it clear that - from his point of view - the constable was out of line:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"All I am going to say is that we are a discipline organization and from what I saw and from the complaints I've received, the police officer Rodriguez was on sick leave and he was out apparently under the influence driving and we have received reports from 2 different motorist who have also complain that his vehicle was in front of them prior to Gamboa intercepting him and so there is no justification for his action. I think that Mr. Gamboa was nice enough to have taken him home instead of the police station where he should have gone from the first place and despite that he has still develop an attitude cursing and assaulting Mr. Gamboa, those are things we cannot countenance. It has to be dealt with and I watch his interview where he said that he was badly beaten couple months ago and that prevented him from consuming alcohol and that is really not true and if it is that he was not under the influence as he is trying to suggest, then why didn't he not subject himself to the alcohol blood test? So as far as the law is concern once you refuse to give the test and you don't have a justifiable reason to do so, you are presume to be under the influence until you prove otherwise. I can tell you that his action is such that amounts to a serious breach of discipline and I'm going to leave that for the court to decide in terms of his guilt or innocence, as well as the tribunal and whatever the outcome of those may be, then I will decide my mind if we are going to dismiss or severely reprimand and give a warning."
We'll follow up when Rodriguez goes before the Tribunal.
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