COI criticises police decision to not act against rioters

SINGAPORE — The decision by police officers to hold their position instead of acting against rioters pending the arrival of the Special Operations Command (SOC) during the Little India riot on Dec 8 was criticised by the Committee of Inquiry (COI) into the incident.

In its report, it praised the initial response of the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and the police officers who first responded to the scene and extricated the body of the traffic accident victim and evacuated the timekeeper and bus driver. However, it found lapses in police action in what it called the second phase of the riot, when rioters began pelting SCDF and police vehicles with projectiles.

When the police decided to hold their position, this could “have been perceived by the rioters as inaction, which could have encouraged and emboldened them to carry out more egregious acts”. They also did not make arrests until after the SOC had arrived. “In the interim, however ... the rioters were likely to have been emboldened each time they caused damage to property and faced no immediate consequence,” the COI said.

It was also not “desirable” that many police officers were in plain clothes.

While witnesses from the police force had argued during the COI hearing that they had been outnumbered, the committee disagreed, pointing out that there had been opportunities to intervene, as demonstrated by two responding officers on the ground who had attempted to charge or detain rioters and who were not overwhelmed. “There were sufficient officers to take action had they been marshalled and directed to do so,” it said, adding that it was not a “life-threatening situation”.

With the SOC late in arriving, the police’s decision to hold their position should have been rethought. Riots, the COI said, are “dynamic situations which call for a dynamic response”.

The failure in communications on that night also contributed to the delay in gaining control of the situation. Officers, the COI found, could not speak into or listen to their radio sets above the noise of the crowd, and too many messages sent over the same frequencies jammed their radio sets. It also led to the late arrival of the SOC, who had been instructed to go to Hampshire Road even though troops were more needed near the Bukit Timah Road side of Race Course Road.

A sizeable number of officers were present, but they were scattered and unaware of one another’s positions and could not form a critical force. Officers also did not know who the commander on the ground was. A single reporting station would have helped improve communication, the COI said.

They added that commanders on the ground must resort to other means of obtaining critical information when communications fail. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lu Yeow Lim, who had assumed command as Incident Manager that night, should have made more effort to find out more about the situation, “either by instructing his officers to move around, or doing so himself”, the COI said.

Nevertheless, the COI commended the police officers for not arresting rioters at the start of the riot as that would have worsened the situation. The decision to prioritise dispersal of rioters over making arrests in the last stage of the riot was also “appropriate”.

“The (committee’s) view is that the lapses in the second phase of the riot were an aberration from the norm. They do not reflect a serious and systemic defect in the police force as a whole,” it said. “The key is to learn from this incident so mistakes are not repeated and future responses are improved.”

Members of Parliament (MPs) whom TODAY spoke to concurred that there was room for improvement, but said it was “not fair to entirely blame the police force”. Mr Edwin Tong, who sits on the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Home Affairs and Law, said “a judgment call” was made that night that could be justified.

“We have to see it in the bigger context — the location, the scale of the event and the number of people,” said the Moulmein-Kallang MP. “If the police were to engage the angry mob, it could lead to more casualties.”

Bishan Toa-Payoh MP Hri Kumar Nair, who chairs the GPC, added: “The commanders did not act in bad faith, nor did they run away or shirk their duties.” He also supported the COI’s recommendations, agreeing that the police could work on improving communication and training their front-line officers to better handle riots.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY ALFRED CHUA