PHUKET: Chalong Police have denied that they are stalling their investigation into an American tourist being stomped on the face by a security staffer at the Laguna Plaza bar complex on Wiset Rd in Rawai.
A CCTV image of the incident, which Chalong Police yesterday said they could not even request without a medical report confirming the American’s injuries. Image: Supplied
The response came not in an official signed statement, but in an unsigned post on the Phuket Provincial Police official Facebook page yesterday (Apr 17).
According to the post, the response was issued after national news channel “Thairath TV” broadcast a report on Sunday (Apr 16) in which the American tourist, Bryce Alan Terzian, 33, went public to explain the incident ‒ and confirmed that after seven days Chalong Police he had not received any reports of progress in the case.
Of note, despite taking seven days and being called out on national Thai TV overlack of action in the case, the Phuket Provincial Police post yesterday came less than 12 hours after the Thairath news program was broadcast, at about 7:25pm on Sunday (Apr 16).
Mr Terzian reported the incident to Chalong Police on Apr 9, police admitted yesterday.
According to the post, Mr Terzian said that the incident occurred at the “Laguna bar” (“ร้านลากูน่าบาร์“) in Rawai at about 4am.
However, the “Laguna bar” shut down and reopened with a grand opening ‘Red Party’ in August last year. The nightclub is now named “Club Zhu”, though police have yet to use that name to identify the location.
According to police, there was an argument with the DJ and there was an altercation resulting in Mr Terzian being dragged away by security staff.
“After that, one security guard [later named by police as Prasert Madsatun] attacked Mr Terzian until he was injured, therefore leading to the complaint for investigators at Chalong Police Station to track down the perpetrators to prosecute the law,” the post said.
During the assault, the nightclub security staffer stomped on Mr Terzian’s face, breaking his nose, police explained.
According to the post by Phuket Provincial Police yesterday, Chalong Police after a week were still waiting for a medical report to confirm the extent of injuries to Mr Terzian.
According to the post, Chalong Police cannot proceed further with their investigation until they have received the medical report confirming the injuries suffered by Mr Terzian.
Further, Chalong Police officers claim they are unable to even request CCTV footage of the incident until they receive the medical report ‒ despite CCTV videos of the incident already spreading online.
“We are in the process of accelerating following up on physical examination results in order to issue a summons or request approval for the issuance of an arrest warrant for the accused oin order to prosecute according to the law, Including collecting evidence such as closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV) inside the store [sic] to prove whether there were other illegal acts or not,” the post by Phuket Provincial Police said.
Of note, the report by police, which publicly revealed Mr Terzian’s passport number, in addition to not correctly publicly identifying the venue where the stomping took place, did not name any of the suspects the police were allegedly investigating.
Also of note, Chalong Police ‒ and consequently Phuket Provincial Police ‒ expressed no interest in investigating why the “Laguna bar” was open at 4am.
With details of the incident, and the role Chalong Police has played so far in the investigation, police late yesterday announced that they magically now had the medical report in hand.
Mr Terzian and Mr Prasert had also presented themselves as at Chalong Police Station, where the “parties voluntarily entered the criminal mediation process”, according to police.
Police said yesterday that Mr Terzian had not suffered a broken nose, as claimed in the original report. According to Chalong Police, Mr Terzian suffered only scratches on his left leg and was “cured” within one day.
Police now claim that Mr Terzian has admitted that he was drunk during the incident, while Mr Prasert said that he was only trying to stop Mr Terzian [from doing something, despite fellow nightclub security staffers already leaving Mr Terzian alone…
Chalong Police as of yesterday claimed that the altercation was yet another ‘misunderstanding’, resulting from a ‘miscommunication’ ‒ like nearly every incident that police in Phuket want to disregard as soon as possible.
According to Chalong Police, Mr Terzian as of yesterday waived his right to any damages resulting from him being stomped on the face.
For his action of stomping on Mr Terzian’s face, an act in Western countries that is treated seriously as it can be fatal, Chalong Police fined Mr Prasert B1,000 for ‘physical assault’
If police are to be believed, officers have now, within 36 hours of the story going nationwide on a Thai news channel, allegedly checked the operating licences of the “Laguna bar”, which remember does not exist.
Regardless, police since yesterday were somehow able to confirm that the bar had applied for a licence (not specified), but had not yet had its application approved.
For this infracion, police reportedly charged the operator of the bar with operating an entertainment avenue without a permit.
