The shot that had a huge impact

The shot that had a huge impact

It's amazing how one shot of a man carrying a gun can have a huge impact.

While we were filming the battle between Thailand's anti-government protestors and the security forces on April 28, we saw several red shirts sneaking forward through cars, approaching the line of police and soldiers.

One of them was carrying a pistol. Cameraman Ben Emery captured the image, and of course we used it in our story that day.

The shot caught the attention of a lot of people in Thailand because it appeared to provide evidence that some of the red shirts are indeed brandishing guns.

The image has been replayed on Thai television over and over again. It's been used in newspapers and on websites, and now by the warring factions.

The red shirt leaders are talking about it on stage. Their political arm, the Peau Thai Party, used it as an exhibit at a media conference. They both claim the government and Thai media have been using that shot in isolation to attack them, instead of telling the whole story about what happened that day.

All this debate has detracted from the facts.

Brandishing pistol

The man in the shot was clearly carrying a gun. He was wearing a red bandana and was creeping towards the police and military when he pulled the pistol from his bag.

He was right in front of us and the three people in our team all saw it with our own eyes. We only saw one man carrying a gun. But he was slinking around the place with several other men. One of whom was dressed completely in black, which immediately raised my suspicion after so many mysterious men in black were spotted during the April 10 violence.

Could they be government/military plants, as the red shirts suggest? Maybe. They could also be from a third party trying to stir up trouble. Or they could simply be red shirts.

The leaders continue to deny their people are carrying guns, but all we can do on the ground in a fast moving situation like that is report what we see. And we saw a man in a red bandana brandishing a pistol.

The second, and more important talking point of that day, was the unrelated killing of a soldier, which may have been a tragic case of death by friendly fire. The government has remained very quiet about the events that led to his death.

Misinformation

It released a statement saying investigations are continuing but it also happened to mention our pictures of the man carrying the gun.

In this order the statement mentioned: the possibility that "terrorists" may have infiltrated the protestors, the direction the bullet came from, the Al Jazeera footage showing "a terrorist" holding a weapon, and then lastly the autopsy results of the dead soldier.

Despite the best efforts of various organisations who are trying to twist the story, we did not in any way suggest that the man we filmed with the gun had anything to do with the death of the soldier. We filmed him about an hour before we saw the body of the soldier being carried out.

This ongoing crisis has been dominated by misinformation, rumours and speculation. The government and the security forces lost another one of their own. A clear explanation should have been forthcoming by now.

Pure luck

Compare this situation to the grenade blasts in Silom on April 22. Immediately after the explosions, the military broadcast over its loud speakers on the streets, that this was a red shirt attack. That same night, the deputy prime minister made a statement saying the grenades were launched from inside the red shirt protest area. Where was the investigation?

From what I witnessed during the gun battle on April 28, it's pure luck that more people weren't killed or injured. The police and soldiers had more than enough warning that the red shirts were coming down the highway. They were travelling en masse and were easily identifiable. They should have diverted all the other traffic.

Instead, innocent people were sandwiched between the riot police and the red shirts. Many remained in their cars, expecting to be let through the road block eventually. But when the security forces started firing their guns, people were trapped, lying down in their vehicles, trying to avoid being shot while others ran to the relative safety of the side of the road.

This should never have been allowed to happen. They could easily have cleared those people out before the reds arrived.

Twenty seven people have now been killed. Everything possible should be done to ensure that toll doesn't rise.