Singapore—A man wielding a knife was apprehended by the police after he interrupted a group of young children who were practicing for a performance for a National Day celebration at around 11 am on July 29, Monday, at Block 785E Woodlands Rise.
Eight policemen confronted the man, who was a suspect in a thievery case.
Shin Min Daily News reported on July 30, Tuesday, that a man wielding a knife made a sudden appearance as a group of around 30 children were at a sheltered area practicing for their performance.
Six teachers were said to be with the children during the incident.
Though none of the children were harmed, some of them sustained bruises in their attempt to flee from the man, whose knife was around 20 cm long.
A netizen by the name of Muhammad Raihan posted a video on July 29 on Facebook of a man surrounded by eight policemen wielding batons.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=532142564258136&id=100023871913759
Mr Raihan wrote, “Occurred: 1053hrs, A man in Grey t-shirt and Black pants Holding knife, Surrounded by 7 Civillian holding Batton!
White screen, speaker and two microphone was there because there were a group of Kindergarten kids having their NDP rehearsal when this incident took place.
The school teacher bring all the kids back to school for safety.
Lucky there was no Hostages
happened now at Woodlands Rise. Woodlands Pasture I / II Neighbours“
In the video, it can be seen that the man at first resisted orders from the police to lay down the knife he was holding, but later on, he obeyed them.
When he dropped the knife, one policeman kicked it away.
The man then lay down himself. After this, the police handcuffed and arrested him.
They can be seen leading the man away from the sheltered area where the incident occurred.
The Straits Times (ST) reported that the next day, the police confirmed that the man, age 55, was arrested during an operation on July 29. He was a suspect in a case of theft.
Police are conducting an investigation into the case.
Despite occurrences such as this, the crime rate in Singapore remains among the lowest in the world. In fact, a report from TODAY Online earlier this year showed that theft and related crimes actually fell by almost nine percent in 2018. Only 12,279 such cases were reported last year.
Experts believe that the recent lower crime rate has been due to greater police presence at malls and other places where there are crowds. Police report that they are working with establishment owners to heighten security coverage with surveillance cameras, install gantries for anti-shop-theft measures, and put up crime prevention posters, among other strategies.
But overall, other types of crime in Singapore have actually gone up, solely due to the sheer number of internet or mobile scams.
Loan scams, scams wherein people pretend to be officials from China, credit-for-sex scams, and e-commerce scams have driven up the number of crimes committed in the country, with unwitting victims losing millions of dollars. –/TISG