Riot inquiry: Senior police officer grilled on lack of situational awareness, arrests

SINGAPORE — A heated exchange dominated today’s (March 4) public hearing into the Little India riot, as Commander of the Tanglin Police Division Lu Yeow Lim’s actions that night came under scrutiny.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lu, who arrived at the riot around 10.11pm, was asked by the committee if his lack of knowledge of how many officers deployed on the ground that night was his failure or that of police operations.

When he arrived at the scene, DAC Lu said there were only eight officers, and they could not tell him how many officers have been deployed on the ground in total. The officers also could only inform him that three or four men were injured, the witness added.

Former police commissioner Tee Tua Ba then quizzed DAC Lu if his call to hold the ground at the junction of Hampshire Road and Race Course Road was the right thing to do, or if the Commander should have moved towards Kerbau Road for a better assessment of the situation and his resources.

DAC Lu replied that if he brought his group of eight men into the riot for a better feel of the ground, he ran the risk of having them surrounded by rioters and that a commander should never go into the heat of battle.

He decided to wait and amass a sufficient number before moving in — an assessment he said was in line with police doctrine.

The Commander told the hearing that communications were “congested” on Dec 8 and he did not know the total number of men available to him and could not be updated by men on vehicle burnings either.

The commander was also questioned about why arrests were not made when a police car was flipped and set on fire right on Hampshire Road, and whether the inaction emboldened rioters.

DAC Lu said that he was “incensed” but every arrest meant utilising the few officers present. He said he also did not want to run the risk of escalating the situation and getting into a fire fight where innocent lives would be endangered.

DAC LU said the situation on the ground was more of an “insurgency” than “two armies squaring off”, that those who appeared as innocent bystanders with shopping bags easily later picked up stones and rocks and actively pelted officers. Projectiles were also thrown from behind other people, he said, and there were no clear targets for the officers even if they wanted to engage. Shooting into the crowd would kill innocents, he said.

It also emerged during the COI that DAC Lu and ASP Jonathan Tang — the initial commander of the night — did not have a chance to communicate about the situation when DAC Lu arrived and took over command.