Singapore — The mother of Justin Lee, 17, who committed suicide on Sept 16 while facing drug-trafficking charges, spoke up in a tell-all interview.
In the interview, along with two of his close friends, Qi Ting and Tricia, Cecilia reveals the type of boy her son was.
Watch the full video:
His friends and mother share the hopes Justin conveyed to them, and how his suicide came very unexpectedly, even though he was battling issues with depression.
Justin was no stereotypical unintelligent juvenile offender, according to a letter that his grieving mother wrote to Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam.
Ms Cecilia Ow, 51, a senior lecturer at a polytechnic, posted the heart-wrenching letter to Instagram on Tuesday (Oct 12), calling for a thorough review of how the police handle juveniles under criminal investigation, and describing as “brutal” her son’s treatment at the hands of anti-narcotics officers.
Ms Ow said of her son Justin: “He jumped from the 12th storey of our block in Hougang late at night on 16 September. I was woken by the police to bring me the traumatic news.”
For the boy, it ended months of trauma that began when he was arrested on Feb 3.
Ms Ow described what happened: “Six to nine Central Narcotics Bureau officers chased him down, handcuffed him, and then brought him to my house to raid his room. They found nothing.”
He was then interrogated at Bedok police station in an “abrasive manner (vulgarities were used), intimidated, and even denied a drink of water”, she said. Then he was taken to the Police Cantonment Complex and held there until she bailed him out the next night. Throughout, she said, he was not allowed to contact her, nor was he accompanied by a trusted adult.
The second time he reported to CNB, he did not know that it meant the investigation would be closed, and he would be charged, she said. When she did not hear from him and could not reach him for three to four hours, she even thought of reporting him missing. But he was already in police custody. /TISG