The national police chief has instructed officers to adjust their crowd control operation in the Din Daeng and Victory Monument areas, the scene of anti-government protests.
The instruction follows complaints by residents.
Speaking after a meeting at the Metropolitan Police Bureau (MPB) headquarters on Saturday, Pol Gen Suwat Jangyodsuk said some changes were adopted to deal with protesters in these areas.
"The police, for instance, will stop entering the communities near the protest sites and will remove cargo containers from the outbound lanes of Vibhavadi Rangsit Road near the Din Daeng intersection. This leads to the residence of the prime minister at the 1st Infantry Regiment on that road," Pol Gen Suwat said.
He also begged for public understanding about the need to deploy crowd-control police to the sites, saying the protest situation has turned violent with some protesters trying to stir up unrest and injure police with ping-pong bombs and metal bolts.
"Given the fact that most protesters who were violent were youths, it has become more difficult for the police to deal with them,'' he said, adding the officers were told to be patient and stick to the international standards of crowd control.
Most of these young protesters were residents of Bangkok's surrounding areas, he said.
He said he was aware that the operations were upsetting residents but police had a job to do.
Pol Gen Suwat has also instructed the MPB to investigate two clips on social media claiming to be examples of police using unnecessary force, said Pol Maj Gen Piya Tawichai, deputy commissioner of the MPB.
A three-second video clip showed a man in uniform firing rubber bullets at protesters approaching on motorcycles, while the other clip showed a riot police officer firing rubber bullets at people at a Din Daeng flat, he said.
Police are now probing about 18 related clips, he said.
In Friday's rally in the Din Daeng area, police detained 26 suspects and seized about 200 ping-pong bombs, pipe bombs and homemade bombs, he said.
Over the past two months, 807 criminal cases have been pursued against 468 suspects in violent protests, including 211 people who have been detained, he said.
Crowd control police on Saturday began firing tear gas at protesters at about 6.15pm after police unsuccessfully ordered the protesters on motorcycles to stop throwing ping-pong and pipe bombs and attacking police with bolts shot from their catapults, a source said.
The clashes erupted near the Veterans General Hospital as a motorcade of protesters headed towards the PM's residence, said the source.
Residents of the Din Deang area, meanwhile, complained over the impact of both the daily protests and police operations.
A 60-year-old woman who asked not to be named said she had to remain home with all doors and windows shut during the protests, which wasn't good for a bed-ridden patient she was looking after at home.
One man said he wished the protests would end and urged ralliers to move away, while another male resident who did not want to be named said people in the Ding Daeng flats were being heavily affected by the protests.
A woman who called herself Kanokwan said she now had to make a detour to avoid the protest site and had to leave her office early daily so that she could arrive home in Din Daeng before 5pm.
A group of Din Daeng flat residents are planning a gathering outside Government House on Tuesday.
They will call for an end to the use of force against protesters, said Prasong Homsanan, a member of the Din Daeng community committee.
The group said if Gen Prayut insisted on staying in the job, despite protesters' call for him to quit, he should move to live elsewhere so the protesters would no longer come to protest near the community.
In another development, the "Talu Fah" protest group on Saturday submitted a petition to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) at the United Nations Building on Ratchadamnoen Nok Avenue.
The group called on the OHCHR to step in to investigate the judiciary's handling of political cases over the past year to see if they had violated their human rights, and send a letter to the government asking it to follow international standards of human rights protection.