Spokesman denies complaints about queue for police guns
Royal Thai Police deputy spokesman Pol Colonel Krissana Patanacharoen insisted on Saturday that the Police Ordnance Division was not too crowded, despite about 2,500 police officers per day queuing up to receive their “welfare pistols”.
Krissana was speaking to reporters after he inspected the process of handing out the pistols to police officers at the division. He made the inspection after a policeman posted a photo of a long queue on social media to complain about the long wait, saying there should have been better management.
Pol Lt-General Tinnapat Pummarin, commissioner of the Police Logistic Office, said his office bought 150,000 Sig Sauer P320SP pistols for police officers to buy for their own use at a subsidised price of B23,890.
So far, 40,000 officers have ordered the pistols under the so-called welfare programme.
Krissana added that Saturday was the third day that police officers had turned up to receive the pistols.
The spokesman said the pistols were handed out at the rate of about 400 per hour. He said each policeman needed to provided documents and a gun-carrying licence for verification. The process took about five minutes for each officer before they could get their pistol from the ordnance division.
Krissana said police had to pick up the welfare pistols in person because the guns had to be kept at the ordnance division in line with the law.
He said the division’s compound is not too crowded for waiting officers and that food and drinks were provided for them.
He said he has checked and did not find officers jumping the queue as alleged by some Facebook users.