Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Foreign Police Volunteers in Thailand. I thought of making this video after actually receiving an email from a viewer; I am going to go ahead and quote directly: "Dear Mr. Hart, I had an unpleasant interaction with an FPV (Foreign Police Volunteer) member last Sunday afternoon 30 July, 2023. The incident happened just before, (I'm going to go ahead and kind of obfuscate) but down near around Pattaya and they had set up a traffic stop in the Pattaya direction”. Quoting further: "For information, I am a 61-year-old retiree, Non-Immigrant O Visa, been living in Thailand for the last 10 years. I am not anti-police and I actually think that random police stops are a good thing." (I have got my issues with random police stops, but leaving that aside), "quoting further: "This afternoon I was pulled over to a traffic stop on my motorbike outside Jomtien at about 4:30 p.m. I thought it was a Thai Police Officer but it was a Welsh Police Volunteer who did not show me a badge or ID of any form. I made it clear I would only show my Thai driving license to a Thai Police Officer and questioned his authority to stop me. He said that he has an ID card that he again didn't show me. He accused me of not having my road tax and tried to get the Thai Police Officer to write me a ticket until I pointed out the road tax displayed on my bike. I showed the Police Officer my Thai driving license and then the police volunteer said " I could have been on my way quicker if I had just showed him my license." I questioned if he had nothing else better to do on a Sunday afternoon, then he called me a***", (I will call it a "C U next Tuesday", you can figure out the acronym from that), "he accused me of being aggressive and then asked me "why don't you take a swing at me", several times trying to goad me into hitting him! Unreal. I said to him why would I do that?" Quoting further: "He then told me my cards were marked", a few times and at that point I did tell him to F-off and departed." It was quite clear at the end that he was trying to intimidate me and took photos of my registration number. While I might not have been the most pleasant customer, I did provide the correct documentations to the Thai Police Officer." Quoting further: "The Police Volunteers do a good job helping out needy tourist and expats but I feel like that non-Thais stopping traffic is going too far and likely not legal especially as my Thai girlfriend was on the bike too." He made it clear throughout our interaction that he was wearing a body cam and therefore videoing me. Again, questionably legal for someone to do so who is not a police officer with privacy laws in Thailand." Yeah, so a lot going on here. There are Foreign Police Volunteers, that is a thing. I've never heard of this kind of behaviour from one. 

What are Foreign Police Volunteers? Well over here on www.kohchangtouristpolice.com and again, this apparently happened down around the Jomtien-Pattaya area, but I was looking for an explanation from a Thai Government source as to what a Foreign Police Volunteer is, and again this is Koh Chang Tourist Police, that is kohchangtouristpolice.com, all one word, under the title: The Koh Chang Tourist Police welcomes you, quoting directly: "The Royal Thai Tourist Police force was established to help protect and serve the needs of foreign tourists visiting Thailand. They are an arm of the Royal Thai Police and often allow foreign nationals to join and assist them as volunteers." Quoting further: "So don't be surprised if you encounter a Foreign Tourist Police Officer. They are expats who give up their free time to help visitors to Thailand in need of assistance." Quoting further: "Members of the Koh Chang Tourist Police create a link the Thai Community and foreign visitors and as such are here to try to ensure that all visitors have a pleasant stay in on the island and elsewhere in Thailand." 

Yeah, that was always my understanding regarding Foreign Police Volunteers which is they are, a tourist needs assistance, I guess in a car crash maybe, like they would be there to sort of assist. I have also seen them kind of be on hand to assist with sort of crowd control if you will, where they are sort of putting up or taking down things like barricades in the event of events and stuff like that. It is my understanding these are not sort of what we would call bonded peace officers, they are not Thai Police in any sense of the word. They're just sort of volunteer helpers or something if you will. Again, I think that what they are doing is quite a benefit but if there are folks out there who are sort of trying to use this as a means and method of strong arming tourists or something, one I think that would be antithesis of the reasoning why the Tourist Police was created to begin with; Tourist Police were created to help tourists, not to create some kind of angle against them, and secondly some foreigner, I have got to be honest with you, as a naturalized Thai, if some Foreigner I don't care what they are wearing, they are some foreign national just volunteering, tries to tell me that they have legal authority as a police officer, I am not going to have a real friendly, pleasant response to that. Again this is me putting my Thai hat on if you will, I am just not going to like that, they don't have authority to do that. 

Again, this sounds like it was kind of a crazy interchange, exchange if you will between these folks; I don't exactly understand what was going on in the broader context but if this was going on where this person was clearly trying to sort of, I don't know what the right word is, but apply leverage or something in their position as a police volunteer, one I find it again kind of laughable because they are not a Police Officer and again it runs counter to the entire reasoning behind creating the Tourist Police in the first place. So my general commentary on this I guess would be, it sounds like it was an unpleasant interaction and hopefully we won't see it again, and more broadly I would say that again, this kind of activity would seem to go against the very reasoning for creating that particular body in the first place.