Apparently, the famous police water cannon was a good PR campaign by the radical leftists who took over the Ministry of the Interior, led by Minister Bobnar. The sinfully expensive device is purpose-built to calm large crowds, which it did perfectly last year and saved the people of Ljubljana from a frenzied mob that was rampaging through the city and threatening public order and peace. When extinguishing a fire, the machine performed much worse.
As reported by Twitter users, a police cannon was placed somewhere in the background to spray the bushes, which were not burning at that moment, as a show, accompanied by the loyal cameras of RTV Slovenia.
Twitter users noticed the cannon spraying water across a landscape that was completely green, with no smoke anywhere near it. Unofficial reports from the field, which the police refused to confirm for a long time, say that the cannon broke down twice.
The authorities then, under pressure from social networks, confirmed what it was about. The Minister of the Interior, Tatjana Bobnar, confirmed that there was indeed a malfunction: “But the malfunction was fixed, so the water cannon is fully operational again,” she explained at Friday’s press conference. “It extinguishes and delivers,” she asserted.
Defence Minister Marjan Šarec said that the starter went off.
“It overheated a little because here is a hill and not a plain near the parliament,” added Ervin Ćurlić, spokesman for the regional civil protection headquarters for Northern Littoral.
“They immediately fixed it because one of the wires was too ‘tangled’ during production, so the error was minimal,” Šarec explained.
“Yes, it was on a long journey,” added Bobnar.
Of course, this would come as no surprise. The vehicle was made for short street trips and slow movement, and at the same time not for this kind of heat. Water cannons are specialised devices designed exclusively to calm crowds and protect civilians from people in a state of group psychosis – like last year, when protesters began to besiege Ljubljana.
The cannon has a directional, concentrated jet that is not even intended for extinguishing fire – fire extinguishers have completely different profiles and characteristics. There is a high probability that it was not a “tangled wire”, but that the starter (which costs a lot of money on such a vehicle) was simply not made for long journeys and extreme heat. It was about using a machine that is completely unsuitable for such actions.
The police have apparently been completely hijacked by left-wing political activists who are aware that they won because the media incited the nation that Janša’s government violated their human rights due to the coronavirus. Gibanje Svoboda party means “freedom” from the corona measures, and Bobnar proved this by hijacking the profile of a Twitter account for cheap politicking – on the police Twitter, the “liberals” wrote that “this time the police cannon will be used to help people”. In doing so, they quietly hinted that last year it was used to repress people who peacefully protested – of course, the reality was completely different – without the cannon, the frenzied hooligans in Ljubljana would probably have done extreme damage and could cause a fatality on the highway. However, RTV Slovenija quickly caught the hint that the Police, under the patronage of Minister Tatjana Bobnar, were hinting and sent the entire team to film the cannon in “action” when helping people.
It is a big scandal, because the political activists who command the police have exposed a machine worth more than one million euros, intended for ensuring law and order, to conditions for which it was not intended and where it has no real function, except that it diverts and steals important resources from real fire engines. It is a scandal worthy of a parliamentary investigation and the minister’s resignation.
Showing counterfactuals:
The police engaged the water cannon to help the firefighters in the large-scale fire that broke out on the Karst in Goriška. It would be bizarre if it was not used because it is able to transport and use a large amount of water quickly. It took over the work from the firemen on certain corridors, where it was necessary to create and maintain fire barriers to contain the fire by wetting the terrain, and the firemen could therefore redeploy the teams to other more important hotspots. The water cannon did an excellent job, and its abilities were not impaired in any way by being involved in firefighting. And even the decision to use it is not the result of “kidnapping” the decision-makers, but rather a matter of reason and intuition, that in an accident of such a large scale, it is necessary to help with all available resources.
Maja Ciperle Adlešič, representative of the Police for public relations
Andrej Žitnik
