Singapore — In the latest incident of people treating safe distancing ambassadors (SDAs) badly, one man threw stools and shouted vulgarities at them on Sunday (Oct 24) at AMK Hub.
What prompted his violence was that the SDAs had asked him to wear his mask properly.
He was later arrested by the police for committing a rash act.
The 40-year-old man was caught on camera during the incident, which occurred outside Sunshine Childhood Playland.
An 18-second video of the incident was sent to crowdsourced news site STOMP. In it, a man in a grey shirt can be seen in a tense confrontation with at least two red-shirted SDAs while other women look on.
The man is holding a plastic stool in one hand during the confrontation and proceeds to lift it and then slam it to the ground, and then shouts.
A child who was standing nearby was seen being moved elsewhere after the man threw the stool down.
Another woman, not one of the SDAs, can then be heard speaking loudly to the man.
“He threw a stool at an ambassador when they asked him to put on his mask properly. After that, I went to ask the guy to move away after another parent tried to stop this. My child was standing scared in a corner with her hands over her ears,” wrote Elizabeth, the woman who sent the video of the incident to STOMP.
Police said that they were alerted to the altercation at about 3:40 on Sunday afternoon.
“The man had allegedly shouted vulgarities at the SDAs when he was advised to wear his mask properly. The man also purportedly swung and threw stools in their direction.
The man was arrested for rash act,” a police spokesman told Stomp, adding that investigations are ongoing.
“We urge members of the public to cooperate with them and comply with the prevailing measures to help curb community transmission of Covid-19.”
There have been several instances of SDAs being treated badly since the pandemic began.
Masks have been thrown at SDAs when people were told they could not exchange them for a different size.
In August of last year, a food stall assistant not only slapped the arm of a safe distancing ambassador but ran over his foot with her e-bike. She was sentenced in April to one week in jail.
Last month, a man threatened to report an SDA for “not doing her job” when she allegedly did not apprehend a mallgoer who did not wear a mask.
At around the same time, another incident involving a Safe Distancing Ambassador at Marina Bay Sands was caught on video where a woman pulls off the SDA’s mask, which was then published by mothership.sg. /TISG
“I have no eyes behind me, sir,” SDA tells man who accuses her of not being observant enough