Thai policemen - always on duty or not ?

[sglad]

So, just purely out of interest might anyone have ant idea as to which it might be, i.e " Can a Thai police man arrest you 24/7 and even if he's outside of his station area etc?"

Yes, they can if the situation warrants it. Here they were hired as deterrents but they still have their police powers. I'm not sure of the legality of this working on the side business but I doubt you're going to get very far with the "you weren't officially on duty so the arrest is illegal" argument with the Thai authorities. They could also be legit auxiliary police. And the most obvious explanation, the one that farangs tend to overlook, is that they are part-and-parcel of the parasitic habitat in what is essentially an illegal industry - they are there to "protect" that particular territory, provide tips offs of impending raids and general security, in return for protection money. Their job is to manage and contain, and to deflect as much negative attention from those businesses as possible, unless of course they've been behind in their protection payments.

In this case, they clearly chose not to arrest as they probably, and correctly, thought that the whole matter could be contained. Thai police have been getting a lot of bad press lately, especially in cases involving farang women, and the last thing they'd want is another PR nightmare involving loud-mouthed Americans.

[Nirish guy]

Yes, they can if the situation warrants it.

Thank you SGLAD for a reply that WAS on topic and interesting - unlike all the other drivel about the second war world war etc that has and had FUCK ALL to do with this thread and should be shifted elsewhere ( maybe to a board for children arguing about "we won the war: "No, you didn't WE did" OHHHH NOOOOO, you didn't WE did" going on ad infinitum.

[pong]

Back to the subject, though i did not read this whole parrotting of we have read this so many times already nothing to do with subject.
Dear NI-what your friend also did not explain to you is that Thai police will only ever get in action if its abundantly clear there is some reward in sight for that.
It does look they were what you call moonlighting, or doing extra overtime in uniform, at probably a regular deal with the barowners in that soi. The agreement is limited to that-any additional actions also need to be rewarded. Plus that probably they did not speak enough of english to deal with this overhyped girlie from Kansas or Oklahoma.
I have witnessed in the past that they threw a similar misbehaving girlie (from UK) out of a guesthouse-even without all her belongings and even passports etc.-but that was whilst on duty and called from the regular station. Even then the guesthse had to provide for extra incentives to have them handle this.
BTW-this girlie must have misbehaved immensely then-Thai bouncers and waiting staff normally rejoice at the prospect of having to throw out and give a firm beating such a miscreature- one can watch this around Patpong and in soi walking/PTY on a regular base. They probably already knew that her wallet was empty.......