Transcript of the above video: 

Pretty big news. There is a great old saying from where I am from back in Kansas, it's almost a cliché when you watch Westerns or especially cartoons that are set in a Western context, they'll say "oh there's a new sheriff in town". That kind of is the situation we are in here in Thailand as we have seen the appointment of a new National Police Chief. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from world.thaipbs.or.th, it looks like they have changed their URL there, so again that is world.thaipbs.or.th. It is a bit of a mouthful. That said, the title is: Pol. Gen. Kitrat, New National Police Chief. Quoting directly: "The Police Commission unanimously approved the appointment of Pol. Gen Kitrat Phanphet as the new National Police Chief today, succeeding Pol. Gen. Torsak Sukvimol who retired at the end of September." Quoting further: "Pol. Gen. Kitrat, who has served as the acting Police Chief since October 1st, was one of the three candidates considered by the Police Commission, and approved by Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. He was a member of Class 41 of the Police Academy, a member of Class 61 of the National Defense College and has a master's degree in Public Administration from the National Institute of Development Administration. He joined the Police Service in February in 1988 as a Deputy Inspector in Rayong's Mueang district." So again this is who the new National Police Chief is. This person has replaced Big Tor, Khun Torsak, Torsak Sukvimol who has now retired it appears. 

As we have discussed in prior videos "Big Joke" was sort of in the running some one year ago for the possibility of being in the top police slot. He has now been removed from the Police. It's my understanding there remains still one more possible appeal to the Thai Supreme Court but as of yet, I have seen no further news regarding that and based on what I am seeing right now, it does appear that "Big Joke" is no longer involved with the Police Force and it appears that that will be sort of the case moving forward. That said, we do have a new National Police Chief. As noted, he was unanimously nominated and confirmed by again the Police Commission. So this is the "new sheriff" in town if you will here in Thailand. 

It remains to be seen exactly how things will play out. I think it is interesting, we've been in a kind of not necessarily a limbo, but there has been a transition period as we have been seeing the Head of the National Police retire and now we are seeing a new one come in, and again, sort of many of these incidences of 'foreigners behaving badly' may have occurred in the sort of "vacuum" of the Police Executive. And it stands to reason in my mind that I think we will see some more assiduous enforcement with regard to Thai law especially now we have a new Chief and generally speaking, you often will see a sort of initial tightening insofar as people kind of get their act for lack of a better term together, when you see a new Commander in town and then you sort of see the consequences of that which is oftentimes more scrutiny and more enforcement activity; that's at least been my experience. Now how exactly this plays out moving forward remains to be seen, but we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.