Cases of abuse against Home Team on the rise; Shanmugam vows action

SINGAPORE — There were 484 cases last year — or more than one a day — of Home Team uniformed officers being physically or verbally abused, revealed Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam yesterday, as he vowed to take action against such unacceptable behaviour.

He also noted that the problem has worsened, with the number of such cases rising more than 65 per cent between 2014 and last year.

Sharing the latest figures at the Minister’s Award Presentation Ceremony yesterday, Mr Shanmugam said the Home Affairs Ministry (MHA) has started working with the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) to press for “deterrent sentences, harsher sentences” for those who obstruct the work of public servants.

Such a collaboration has helped bump up the jail sentence of Jeffrey Yeo Ek Boon, who had slapped a police officer, from one to 10 weeks, and increased the sentence of Australian man Jason Peter Darragh, who had assaulted policemen at Changi Airport, from six-and-a-half months’ jail to more than eight months, he said.

“If that approach doesn’t work, we will look at the legal framework,” added Mr Shanmugam during the ceremony held at the Home Team Academy.

Last December, he said in a Facebook post that the MHA had been asked to relook the legislation surrounding the assault of uniformed officers, following the sentencing of Albin Lim Fu Rong to 10 weeks’ jail for attacking a policewoman in May last year.

The ministry was also told to consider if the 10-week sentence was “adequate” for the 25-year-old who had grabbed the policewoman’s head and neck, and pushed her head to the ground.

“I have said to the MHA that anyone who attacks a uniformed officer should learn a lesson which he will never forget; and it should be enough of a deterrence to others,” Mr Shanmugam had said in his post.

Last month, three policemen were involved in a violent tussle at Ang Mo Kio with a 41-year-old man — suspected of drink-driving and drug-related offences — which saw one of the officers hospitalised with head injuries and another suffered from a broken thumb.

A video clip of the incident went viral on social media.

Speaking to TODAY, several police officers said it is not uncommon for them to be at the receiving end of “very demeaning remarks”, and having vulgarities hurled at them.

A police officer with eight years’ experience said some members of the public had called his partners and him “useless”, and told them that they “don’t know how to do their jobs”, adding that he had learnt to “practice tolerance”.

The 28-year-old, who declined to be named, said: “Because right now people are educated, they know they can be charged for saying (vulgarities), so they choose to hurt us through other forms of words (by) demeaning you and questioning your powers.”

Mr Shanmugam said yesterday that the MHA has “zero tolerance” for such behaviour.

“What the public doesn’t understand is that it is not easy for our officers to deal with people who are violent, because we want to exercise reasonable force (when restraining violent parties),” he said.

Referring to videos he had seen from the United States, Mr Shanmugam said Singapore should not have to witness a scene where four to five police officers attack one person, “whatever would have been the circumstances”.

“We do not want to cause unnecessary or excessive hurt. We also do not want any kind of image, caught on video, that can do harm to our own force, and morale as well,” he added.