Knesset panel debates cops who patrol without name tags

Struck: They’re like robbers who enter a bank in masks.

By BEN HARTMAN
Police car370 (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Police car370
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The phenomenon of cops removing or blocking their name tags while on patrol is widespread and dangerous, members of Knesset said during a meeting Thursday of the Knesset Interior and Environment Committee.
The issue, like others involving allegations against the police, made for strange bedfellows across the political spectrum.
Dov Henin, of the left-wing sh party, said “an anonymous police force is a violent police force.”
Orit Struck, of right-wing Bayit Yehudi, said a cop without a name tag “is like a robber who enters a bank with a mask on.”
The meeting was called according to Struck because of a bill that almost got to its second and third reading that would have made it a criminal charge for officers to be on duty without wearing a name tag.
The issue is one of contention with a wide spectrum of people, who have seen officers at time block or remove their name tags before patrolling protests and also home demolitions.
Police representatives at the committee meeting said they don’t believe the phenomenon is as widespread or serious as those present at the meeting contended.
At the end of the meeting, MK David Tzur (Hatnua), a former top police officer, called for an additional meeting and said he believes there is a serious gap between the police contention that the matter is of negligible importance and the contentions of the MKs that it is a widespread phenomenon and called for another meeting.