Earlier this afternoon, a video was circulating on social media and Whatsapp messenger of a man raving outside Tanglin Shopping Centre beside the St. Regis hotel.
At what seemed to be a diversion of pedestrian traffic, the elderly man took the opportunity to lash out at a police officer about rising costs of living alongside the S$20 million bill of the Trump-Kim summit.
The man was gesticulating and shouted at the police officer, “This is not my country, this is your money ah? 12 per cent water increase, 12 per cent electricity increase and you tell me go off.”
The police officer then asked him to calm down and to walk through, “Go down this way, it’s a short cut”, the officer said.
The man seemed to get more agitated and retorted, “Why don’t you walk round? Why don’t you walk round short cut? Why don’t you short cut yourself?”.
He also repeated, “You take 12 per cent increase in electricity, 30 per cent increase in water, to spend money like this? Waste of [people’s] money.”
He then also shouted in dialect, “Waste of resources”, and “Earlier die, the better”.
Through the incident, the police officer calmly dealt with the man and repeatedly asked him to “calm down”.
The officer was lauded by netizens who said that he was able to keep his cool and handle the situation very professionally.
Many also said that in other countries, the man would have been tasered by the police for his behaviour.
The video, which was also shared on Facebook page ROADS.sg received 26,000 views, almost 360 shares and 400 reactions.
obbana@theindependent.sg