Rock star Sek Loso’s ‘pals’ in uniform face investigation

Cops in Bangkok and Nakhon Si Thammarat evidently couldn’t resist the celebrity allure, despite the fact that he’s accused of firing a pistol into the air at a temple and had methamphetamine and ecstasy in his system when arrested and tested.

Royal Thai Police deputy spokesman Pol Colonel Krissana Patanacharoen said on Friday that Pol Maj General Wanchai Ekpornpit – the police chief in Nakhon Si Thammarat, home to the temple where Seksan fired nine rounds into the sky in his own live-online broadcast – had set up a fact-finding committee to determine why his officers were partying with the rock star.
In Bangkok, Khan Na Yao police superintendent Pol Colonel Sing Singhadet has been transferred to an inactive post pending the results of an investigation into a photo of Seksan and him.
Seksan is charged with carrying and discharging a firearm in public and illegally possessing an unregistered gun.
He flaunted the evidence in a Facebook Live broadcast last Friday and was arrested at his home in Bangkok’s Bang Khen district after an armed confrontation with police, resulting in the additional charge of resisting arrest.
A Bangkok court granted bail so he could answer the warrant for his arrest in the South.
There, Seksan allegedly confessed to carrying and discharging his gun, but insisted he legally owned it and it was registered.
The Nakhon Si Thammarat court granted bail on a Bt150,000 guarantee so he could return to Bangkok to respond to a further charge of drug abuse based on the findings of a urine test. Seksan blamed the test results on sleeping pills.
Somewhere on his travels, Seksan stopped to dine with police officers at a Nakhon Si Thammarat restaurant and swiftly posted cheery photos of the event on Instagram.
Viewers complained that such chumminess on the part of the police was inappropriate and undermined public confidence in their neutrality in the investigation.
Krissana identified Seksan’s fellow diners as superintendent Pol Colonel Rangsan Sukkua and Muang Nakhon Si Thammarat inspector Pol Lt Colonel Theerapol Phumchai, and said they too are now in inactive posts and under investigation.
In Bangkok, Pol Colonel Sing is being asked why his picture also appeared on Instagram with Seksan, posed casually over a table laden with food and beverages, complete with a message from the rocker thanking the officers for “helping things to be easier”.

Sing, seen in the photo making a thumbs-up gesture, said it was taken in his precinct’s investigation room at 7am on January 1 – before the drug-test results were known and before Seksan was brought up to apply for detention.
The beverages were neither alcoholic nor ordered for Seksan, he said. They’d been left there by police officers using the room earlier.
Sing said the photo was taken when two visitors arrived to see Seksan, as was their right – Pol Maj General Prasopchoke Prommul, who had put Seksan in drug rehab in 2011, and an executive from Grammy Entertainment.
Metropolitan Police Area 2 chief Pol Maj General Ekkachai Boonwisut on Friday nevertheless notified Bangkok police chief Pol Lt General Chanthep Sesawet that Sing would face a probe and had meanwhile been transferred to Metropolitan Police Area 2 Office.