Nobody doubts why the Crime Suppression Division police had to make the arrest of Phra Buddha Isara, the abbot of Wat Or Noi in Nakhon Pathom, before dawn of May 24 at his living quarters on the temple grounds.
According to the police, the abbot, who was defrocked after his arrest and now is known by his lay Suwit Thongprasert, was wanted by the police on charges of robbery and associating with an illegal society related to his role in leading a protest in the Chaengwattana area in 2014 against then government of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
He was part of the People's Democratic Reform Committee's Bangkok Shutdown campaign to drive out the government.
Veera Prateepchaikul is a former editor, Bangkok Post.
Another charge of illegal use of the name of the late King Bhumibol and Her Majesty Queen Sirikit in the making of Buddha images was also filed against him which he admitted.
The public outcry in social media was directed against what many deemed as excessive use of force by the CSD police in the raid of the temple and the arrest of the abbot.
However, there were also comments from others, mostly from the opposite side of the political divide, who praised the police action as justified. These people, apparently, felt avenged with the abbot's arrest.
The video clip, which went viral in social media, looks like a trailer from a scene in a Hollywood crime movie when the police are to raid the house of a notorious criminal or suspected terrorist.
Guns drawn and aimed at the door of the living quarters as another policeman used a hammer to smash the door knob to force their way into the private sanctum of the monk as he slept.
Take a look at clips of two other incidents handled by the police in their arrest of Italian-Thai boss Premchai Karnasuta and the attempt to arrest Phra Dhammachayo, former abbot of Wat Dhammakaya.
One shows the national deputy police chief, Pol Gen Srivara Ransibrahmanakul, bowing his head before Premchai as he arrived at a police station in Kanchanaburi to acknowledge the charges against him. He was criticised for showing a powerful figure too much respect.
The other shows police from the Department of Special Investigation politely seeking permission from assistants of Phra Dhammachayo to enter the temple to look for the fugitive monk. Police, who say they tried to avoid the use of force, were criticised for repeatedly fumbling raids on the temple.
Dhammachayo is still wanted by the law and is believed to be hiding outside Thailand.
That is why followers of the former Phra Buddha Isara have accused of the police of practising double standards in the handling of different classes of suspects: lenient and gentle when arresting the elite, and use of brute force against others.
The national police chief, Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda, has defended the CSD action, claiming it went by the book. But that faint defence has failed to answer the question of double standards or quell the public outcry.
Two days afterward, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha stepped in to douse the fires of resentment against the police in general and the CSD in particular.
According to government spokesman Lt-Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd, the prime minister apologised on behalf of the police and he has warned the police not to repeat the same harsh treatment again.
It was also reported that Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon who oversees the police force also apologised on behalf of the force.
But why didn't the police chief, the CSD commander or the commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau which has jurisdiction over the CSD police, come out to offer an apology instead of the prime minister?
My answer that they didn't think they had done anything wrong and they don't agree that the police apply double standards. This tends to suggest the words "apology" or "I am sorry" do not exist in the police terminology.
There have been many cases which are much worse that the arrest of Suwit Thongprasert, formerly Phra Buddha Isara. Many innocent people have been wrongly arrested, wrongly charged, prosecuted and convicted because their cases were mishandled -- intentionally or carelessly -- from the very beginning by the police.
One brazen case of police gross mishandling of a case concerns the murder of a Thai-American girl, Sherry Ann Duncan, back in 1986. The victim's boyfriend and four construction workers were arrested based on the testimony of a tuk-tuk driver who claimed to have seen them carry the victim's body from her boyfriend's office in Samut Prakan.
The prosecutor dropped the charge against the victim's boyfriend but indicted the four other workers. All were sentenced to death by the court of first instance and appeal courts, but acquitted by the Supreme Court nine years later.
One died in prison, the second died shortly after being released and a third became disabled after being attacked by inmates while in prison. The fourth man was safe but his life was wasted for almost 10 years in jail.
The case was put to a retrial after the CSD police took over the probe and the real culprits were arrested and indicted.
It took years, false imprisonment and the death of an innocent man to get some justice for families in the police bungling of the Sherry Ann Duncan murder case - and it is instructive why police today still refuse to admit wrong in the arrest of the former monk Buddha Isara. (Bangkok Post file photo by Apichit Jinakul)
Families of the two surviving scapegoats took their case to the Civil Court demanding 54 million baht in compensation from the Royal Police Office. In 2003, the court ordered the Royal Thai Police to pay the victims 26 million baht in compensation.
Then police chief Pol Gen Sant Sarutanon announced that he would appeal the court's verdict. But then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra intervened and ordered the police to pay the compensation.
Not a word of apology has been uttered by the police chief or any senior police about the case or its gross mishandling by the Samut Prakan police.
Of course, there are good and bad policemen just like any other profession. But then why are police not liked and rated poorly in opinion polls about how people feel about the police compared to other branches of the government bureaucracy?
Police never look at themselves in the mirror and have always resisted changes and reform. Four years after the coup, reform of the police by a government reform committee remains stuck in infancy stage -- to the extent that the public has lost hope that the police force will ever be overhauled to serve the public interest.