Crime solved

When I was a crime reporter, I saw many suspects, shortly after being apprehended, being beaten up, and not just by cops. Crime victims or their relatives themselves joined in. The beatings were done in public view: a punch here, a slap there, and a lot of screaming.

It’s safe to deduce that more serious beatings took place behind closed doors, and were reserved for suspects who were harder to crack, such as members of organized crime rings.

If collared in the streets, it was not unusual for a suspect, caught in the act and depending on his crime, to be beaten close to death by an angry mob before the cops arrived.

Those who survived police beatings could consider themselves lucky. Other people known to be notorious recidivists simply ended up dead. There was a time when “salvage” victims in the city of Manila were also adorned by their killers with cardboard signs hanging from their necks, declaring that they were robbers who should not be emulated: “Magnanakaw, huwag tularan.”

Victims beat up criminals in an attempt to get even. And cops? Among pickpockets and other petty criminals, physical harm, and sometimes even the threat of it, seemed to work. From what I saw, those threatened with or subjected to physical harm quickly admitted their crimes.

Hardened criminals, and those who commit illegal acts out of ideology, are another story.

During martial law, political detainees had numerous horror stories about the interrogation methods employed by state forces. Counterinsurgency (including anti-Marcos activity) at the time was handled by the military and the Philippine Constabulary, whose Metropolitan Command Intelligence Service Group (MISG) was one of the most dreaded units in the martial law regime.

Torture victims talked of severe beatings, rape, sleep deprivation, being injected with truth serum, the Pinoy version of waterboarding (the water is laced with chili), being burned with cigarettes, and electrocution through wires attached to nipples and genitals.

*   *   *

Memories of those days were revived by that now infamous cell phone video of a man lying naked in a fetal position on a tiled floor, with a string attached to what seemed to be his penis, being beaten with a rope by a man in shorts and a white t-shirt.

There must have been more to that incident than a cop trying to extract a confession. The naked man was supposed to be a holdup suspect. It’s not a serious crime; suspects in such cases normally own up to their crime with just one menacing bark from a cop. Why bother torturing a penny-ante crook?

And with human rights advocates active in our society, cops have learned to employ forms of pressure that do not leave physical marks on suspects. They have also learned to extract information or solve certain crimes without resorting to physical harm. In several high-profile kidnapping cases, for example, there were stories of wives or other relatives of the kidnappers being detained by state forces until the kidnap victims were freed.

Why strip a man naked and whip him with a rope, and what was that string on the penis for? There was passion in that beating. It looked like the handiwork of a man with a personal grudge, or doing the dirty work for one of his cops who had a personal grudge against the naked man.

Investigators have established that the “torture chamber” was the Asuncion Police Community Precinct in Tondo, Manila. Yesterday investigators said four witnesses positively identified the torturer as Senior Inspector Joselito Binayug, the precinct commander at the time of the torture in March this year.

The naked man was identified, reportedly through his tattoo by his wife, as holdup suspect Darius Evangelista, missing since March and believed killed in a supposed encounter with police.

*   *   *

Through his lawyer, Binayug has denied being the torturer in the video. His initial reaction to reports tagging him as the torturer was that he was a decorated officer who had a good track record in anti-narcotics operations.

Being a decorated cop would make it an even bigger shame if investigators prove that he was the torturer. Why do cops resort to extrajudicial methods? And what can be done to minimize if not eradicate this practice?

A suspect’s verbal admission of guilt makes a cop’s job so much easier. The suspect then signs a confession wherein he waives his right to a lawyer. He signs his statement in the presence of a counsel picked by the cop, and a case is filed with the prosecutor’s office.

The filing is sufficient to declare a crime solved. A high solution rate looks good on paper; cops need to report a high solution rate to their superiors, all the way up to Philippine National Police headquarters at Camp Crame. Those statistics are among the factors considered when choosing the year’s best police station or precinct or district command, and of course when deliberating on an officer’s promotion or assignment.

The casualty here is peace and order. Compare the rate of “solution” to the rate of conviction for cases filed in court over the years and you will see a large disparity; the conviction rate is too low.

Torture, or the threat of it, can elicit false statements, both from the innocent and the guilty. Too many cases are thrown out and the accused, some of whom are truly crooks, are freed because of legal infirmities in the arrest or forced confession.

Cops who don’t want to be bothered with court appearances or who don’t trust judges sometimes prefer to simply get rid of suspects quickly. Filipinos disillusioned with the country’s weak justice system are willing to look the other way when notorious carjackers, kidnappers and child molesters are shot dead ostensibly in an armed encounter or while “trying to escape” from police custody.

People cringe at instant justice only when innocent civilians become collateral damage, which is not unusual.

How do you discourage torture and summary execution of suspects? Apart from catching and punishing torturers, cops need better training in modern, scientific criminal investigation. Police officers who have obtained special training in law enforcement overseas, such as in the United States, Britain and Australia should be made to impart what they have learned to their colleagues down the ranks.

The government must also provide cops with better equipment for criminal investigation, including boosting crime laboratory facilities and hiring more forensic experts.

It will take time before the effects of such measures are felt. Until then, we will likely see more cops taking the more convenient route of “solving” crimes.