Recently, one of the main topics discussed online in Armenia has been the Traffic Police, particularly two inspectors who violated traffic laws and ignored moral rules of conduct with citizens. Your humble servant's video camera recorded their actions.

More than 60,000 people viewed the video and about 20 pages of comments were left. Almost all local media referred to the issue and Chief of Police Vladimir Gasparian fired the law-breaking policemen. One of the policemen's expressions, "Seems like you're completely mixing things up," became the most popular quote in social networks.

Although the strong resonance that followed when the video went live was unexpected for everyone (personally, I was expecting 2,000 or 3,000 views), it became obvious immediately after the incident that the policemen would be strictly punished for this action, as the police of the Republic of Armenia does everything possible to change public opinion about itself.

I am sure the reader noticed that police reforms are mainly conducted in the subdivisions, where there is more communication with citizens. Particularly, you can see the improvements in the Traffic Police (they don't remove license plates, the lights are flashing during evening hours, vehicle registrations and issuing driving licenses became easier and so on), passport services and the patrol service, where a subdivision with policewomen speaking foreign languages was formed.

We will touch upon these reforms later, but we can already definitely conclude that public opinion is certainly very important for police management (especially during this pre-election period).

Indeed, it would be desirable for reforms to reach the criminal investigation and investigative bodies, but let's discuss how new public leverages (more precisely, a leverage), which appeared as a result of reform, can serve the interests of the government.

Video cameras and policemen

Before the parliamentary elections many cars with prestigious license plate numbers were parked in rows on Halabyan Street (near the regional headquarters of the Republican Party of Armenia), violating the traffic rules and thus preventing traffic.

When we reported about the accumulation of cars to the police, the Traffic Police car, which arrived in half an hour, turned around and drove back when it was clear that the cars belonged to the Republicans. When we called the police again and told them that the Traffic Police car's arriving, ignoring and leaving were recorded on video, patrol service and Traffic Police cars arrived in minutes. It took them seconds to clear away the illegally parked cars belonging to the Republicans.

In the video, the victorious struggle against cars accumulated near the regional office of the Republican Party of Armenia.

Now imagine what would happen if the well-known incident between me and the Traffic Police inspectors that took place days ago wasn’t recorded on video. The picture is quite clear -- there would be no noise and the law-breaking policemen would continue their service.

Thus, it is obvious that making the issue public led to justice and a legal victory in both cases. Making the issues public is quite easy -- you just need a video camera, which almost all of us have in one form or another.

Often we read or hear stories from citizens about police violations, but, as a rule, the police denies them. Thus, when the violation is obvious, the police, as a rule, doesn’t deny it and the ones who are guilty are punished.

Indeed, police management really doesn’t need to share the responsibility for an ordinary law-breaking policeman's guilt (when that guilt is already undisputed and obvious). Public opinion is quite respected and the guilty policeman is punished.

Maybe such cases are unique, but it is a direct message to other policemen that the same can happen to them as well.

Instead of an epilogue

As previously mentioned, hundreds of people left comments under the video, which was viewed 60,000 times. If we exclude the profanity aimed at the policemen as well as words of praise for the authors and the video camera from these comments, then we see an army of users who believe that civil society can at least bring the Traffic Police to European standards exclusively by using video cameras.

Thus, conveying the opinion of people who commented the video, I call on everyone to record any violation by a policeman on video and upload it to YouTube. Be sure that the policeman would be punished and you will benefit your country.

P.S. We certainly talk about violations that take place on the streets and noticed by passersby, but the aforementioned is applicable to any other case as well (for an official of any system) when it is possible to capture the violation on video.