“Let’s be honest – I don’t expect Thailand’s criminal justice system to be a beacon of light for the rest of the world.”
I didn’t plan on writing tonight. I planned on sitting down recovering from an intense workout while proudly reflecting on the Frozen “Let It Go” solo my daughter absolutely killed earlier this evening at her school’s chorus recital. It’s nights like these that I should stay off of the internet altogether. But it’s not every night that I come across something so disgusting, and so grossly unjust, that I cannot postpone shining a light on it until tomorrow.
In my time with OpsLens, I’ve made quite a few references to boycotts. I find them an interesting marketplace phenomenon and political tool. After all, what better way to make yourself heard than to do so with your dollar? There are a few companies that I have taken issue with to the point that I don’t even bother with them anymore.
I used to love ESPN, but now I won’t even turn it on to check a score. Watching Jamele Hill and Michael Smith play identity politics games on air makes my stomach turn. While most people are just trying to make an honest living for their families, these two ultra-privileged wind bags get to comment on adults playing games for a living. Yet I need to check my privilege? I won’t have any of it.
If I sound passionately against giving ESPN even a fraction of a penny through my viewership, it’s because I am. There are plenty of other media outlets, products, and franchises I take issue with as well, but none of them are who this article is about. New reports of Red Bull heir Vorayuth Yoovidhya’s killing of a police officer in Bangkok have burrowed down deep within me.
According to a report in the New York Post dating back to September of 2012, Yoovidhya was driving his Ferrari when he fatally struck 47-year-old veteran policeman, Sgt. Maj. Wichean Glanprasert. After continuing to drag the officer down a residential Bangkok roadway, he fled the scene, putting responsibility for the death of a cop in his high-end rear view mirror.
The initial investigators put in good police work to trace oil streaks spewed by the vehicle from the crime scene back to Yoovidhya’s Thai mansion. Once the vehicle was located, Yoovidhya was brought in for questioning and admitted to striking the deceased motorcycle cop with his car.
For every hundred great cops, there is one piece of human garbage who should have the badge ripped from their chest. It appears that one of these characters was caught trying to pin Yoovidhya’s fatal hit and run on an innocent man before Bangkok’s top cop, Lt. Gen. Comronwit Toopgrajank, took over the case personally and charged Yoovidhya with an array of offenses related to his crime. This was five years ago – and Yoovidhya remains a free man.
Over the past five years the heir to the Red Bull throne, and fourth wealthiest man in Thailand, has been excused to miss a total of eight court appearances citing “work commitments abroad”. What type of criminal justice system allows a cop killer to prioritize traveling outside of the country to London and Singapore over attending his own court dates? Apparently the same type of criminal justice system that has already allowed the original speeding charge to expire, and is getting dangerously close to allowing the ‘hit and run’ charge to as well.
Let’s be honest – I don’t expect Thailand’s criminal justice system to be a beacon of light for the rest of the world. This is a country that allows convicted murderers to fight foreigners for their freedom in Muy Thai bouts. You think I’m kidding? I wish I was. I’d link the documentary so you could see for yourself, but I’m not going to give it the advertising.
I’m instead left wondering what I should be more disgusted about here – the fact that this scoundrel Yoovidhya was aided by an equally detestable and crooked cop in avoiding consequences for causing the death of an officer, or that I’ve been helping a cop killer live the good life by drinking Red Bull products all these years. Shame on me for not knowing where my dollars were going.
I’ve sat in court listening to a defense attorney tell a judge that his client’s charges should be dismissed because he only tried to bite a cop’s finger off out of fear. I watched our own President do nothing to try and get New Jersey cop-killer Joanne Chesimard (AKA Assata Shakur) extradited from Cuba when he lifted the trade embargo in 2016.
Sometimes justice isn’t always the reality, or even the goal, when the victim is a cop. What can you do? That’s just the world we live in. With that said, I hear Monster has a great line of drinks that will keep you going all night long.
It doesn’t matter that this continued injustice happened halfway across the globe, does it? Whether a cop is working a beat in Atlanta, Paris, Rio, or Bangkok – they are still a cop. And whether a cop is working in the shining sun, or under a twilight moon, they’re probably drinking Red Bull to fight back the cobwebs.
All that ends today for me. I’m going to boycott the living hell out of Red Bull, and I urge every cop to do the same. They say Red Bull gives you wings – but if you’re Vorayuth Yoovidhya, it gives you a license to kill a police officer and get away with it. I only wish I knew of this travesty years ago.
