Arrested after high speed chase
News story from VOL.IX NO.1 – 5 January 2001
In perhaps another one of those “only in Pattaya” happenings, 26-year-old crime prevention volunteer Saiyan Kamphaengtong got a little overzealous in his “crime prevention” on Christmas Eve. The subsequent events were also a bit over the top.
At 3:20 a.m. on December 24, Saiyan, driving a red Toyota, pulled up to a pair of “girls of the second category” at the corner of Pattaya Land and Beach Road. Saiyan told the “girls of the second category” that he was a police officer, then demanded 500 baht or he would arrest them for bothering tourists.
Unfortunately for Saiyan, the women born men didn’t have the money, so he ordered one of them, later identified as Mr. Wirapong Sinsukh, age 22 from Udorn Province, who, by the way, was fashionably dressed in a dark blouse and white skirt, into the car. Saiyan then took off and in the process hit a parked Volvo owned by a news reporter, denting the car and breaking the rear lights.
The other “girl of the second category” called the police, told them the car had just sped off onto South Pattaya Road, and the chase was on.
Police quickly put the call out over the airways and the red Toyota was soon spotted on South Pattaya Road heading for Sukhumvit.
Other crime prevention volunteers who had joined the police in the chase set up a motorcycle roadblock, but Saiyan failed to stop, and instead ran over the blockade and nearly ran down one of the volunteers. He then turned into a side street at high speed with the other vehicles in hot pursuit.
Saiyan managed to outrun the motorcycles, preceding in the direction of 3rd Road towards Central Pattaya into Soi A.R. But police radioed ahead and blocked off the narrow road with a police pick-up truck, finally bringing the Toyota to a stop.
Saiyan was taken into custody and escorted into the police station, along with the passenger to clarify the incident. Inside the car, police found three .45 caliber cartridges, 1,520 baht, a list of names of motorbike taxi drivers and payments due in the amount of 3,100 baht for each queue.
Saiyan admitted to driving into the parked Volvo but said as a crime prevention volunteer he was just arresting a katoey that needed taking off the streets for causing incidents and pestering visiting tourists. He said the list of names of motorbike taxi drivers was for payments due to his boss, an unidentified police officer.
Saiyan was charged with illegally possessing live ammunition, posing as a police officer, reckless driving, causing an accident and avoiding arrest.
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