Caught sleeping on the job in Khon Kaen

A woman had reportedly gone to Khon Kaen’s Si Chomphu Police Station at 10pm on Sunday to file a police complaint and found all the lights turned off and an officer sleeping on the floor. She tried to wake him up, but when he did not respond, she recorded him sleeping and returned home.

She then posted the clip on social media, which invited a lot of comments, including several slamming the police for being lax during the night shift and many wondering if the officer was drunk.

Khon Kaen’s deputy police chief Pol Colonel Thanawat Deeboonmee Na Chumphae said on Tuesday that the officer had been identified as 52-year-old Snr Sgt-Major Boonsong Khammatasila, who oversees the station’s crime suppression division.

“Boonsong said he was in charge of a night shift on Sunday but he felt ill at the end of his shift, so he lay down in the storage room,” Thanawat said. “He will be transferred to the Khon Kaen Police Operation Command until the investigation is completed.

“Even if he was really sick, sleeping at the station is not appropriate. An officer must file for a sick leave properly,” he added. “There should have been another officer standing by when the woman visited the station, but he may have been in the toilet and may not have heard her calling.”

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Meanwhile, Pol Colonel Phraiwan Thaophrom, chief of Si Chomphu Police Station, added that the woman had returned the following day to file a complaint against a neighbour who was allegedly threatening to shoot her.

“Police officers went to the address and arrested the suspect along with a fake gun and are interrogating him,” he said. “He was initially charged with Type 1 narcotics abuse as we found drug traces in his urine.”