Police officers: 'hard-drinking bastards'

The Chief of the Romanian Police Department, Liviu Popa, declared Friday, in Cluj, that he was in favour of dismissals in the police department because ‘there are enough drunken, bastards policemen’ and the once who shame the police should leave.

Liviu Popa added that this moment is extremely favourable for the modernization of the police and the ‘sanitation of the police environment’.

‘This is a very favourable moment for the modernization of the police and the sanitation of the police environment. I have enough police officers, who are, as you know very well, drunks and bastards.’

‘So far, not one was dismissed for not working. They thought: who doesn`t work, doesn`t make mistakes, who doesn`t make mistakes deserves to be promoted’, Liviu Popa declared.

The Chief of Police also declared that ‘we have over 7,000 police officers previously investigated and disciplinary sanctioned, of which 2,000 have been penalized twice since the release of the police officer statute in 2002.’

According to it, in all cases of misconduct there will be an absolutely objective and transparent analysis, and the decisions will be made together with the managements of the inspectorates.

‘In my opinion, there could be 500,000 and I assure you we could use 500,000 police officers. The Police Department must be efficient, let’s not embezzle public money.’

‘This is the role of the manager of the Police Department. In 1990 we used to have 5-10 computers in the police, now we have dozens of thousands, but the bureaucracy has grown exponentially. There are a lot of expenses we make without any efficiency. I think we should introduce the principles of the private in the public side of our activity’, superintendent Liviu Popa also added.

The Pro Lex trade union disagrees with the declarations of the Chief of the Romanian Police Department

In response, the leader of the Pro Lex trade union, Vasile Lincu, states that the declarations of superintendent Liviu Popa are offensive and prejudice the image of the police, the more so as coming from the head of this institution.

‘The criteria proposed by the Ministry of Administration and Interior for the assessment of the police officers who are bound to be dismissed from their job seem fair and objective, most of them, and the main criteria should be performance and professionalism.’

‘This declarations, which are indeed hurtful, in the absence of evidence are unacceptable, especially coming from the Chief of the Romanian Police Department’, Vasile Lincu declared.

However, the leader of the Pro Lex trade union stated also that the police should only hire people who graduated a military school, not farmers and priests.

Translated by: Manuela Stancu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University