Three men will face the Kratie Provincial Court on Friday for assaulting police on Monday after one of them was pulled over and scolded for speeding and doing wheelies on his motorbike, according to police and a relative.
Rin Monioudom, 21, was stopped by a police officer for driving recklessly through Chhlong district’s Kompong Damrei commune at about 5 p.m., and quickly became violent, according to commune police chief Pen Kunthea.
“Monioudom pushed our police officer to the ground and then one of his friends ran in and punched the officer twice,” he said.
The officer, Touch Sida, called for backup, while Mr. Monioudom and his friend Seng Makara went to their friend’s home where police found them later, he said.
“When our police arrived there, [the friends] chased them away with sticks and attempted to fight,” Mr. Kunthea said, adding that the three men also shouted vitriol at the officers, tore their clothes off and attempted to squeeze their genitalia.
At about 8 p.m., a contingent of commune and district police returned and arrested Mr. Monioudom, Mr. Makara and the third man, Seng Hak.
But while police painted Mr. Monioudom as a violent hooligan, Mr. Chet said the officer who pulled over his son had demanded $250, and that he had a 2-year-old boy on board, a version of events backed up by Doeun Khonny, an investigator for rights group Adhoc.
Mr. Chet said a drunk officer pushed Mr. Monioudom off the motorbike outside Mr. Hak’s house, and that the 2-year-old’s mother, Lon Sophea, pushed the officer to the ground.
He said officers returned to the house, pistol-whipped the woman, tasered the men and took them away.
“Police hit her with a gun, and her husband said: ‘Don’t hit my wife, she is a lady. If you want to hit someone, please hit me, I am a man. Shoot me.’ Then another officer took a pistol and pointed it to his head and police took them back to their headquarters.”
