The phrase "this is no drill" could aptly describe the manhunt for the person(s) who defaced the Cenotaph war memorial in the heart of Singapore city with red spray paint.
After just three days, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) paid a visit to the suspected vandal, a 32-year-old man. The look on his smug face when that knock on the door came would be a work of art. There he is in the picture (above) released by the SPF.
The SPF said today that officers from Central Police Division nabbed the suspect at about 11:30am this morning.
"Extensive investigations and round the clock enquiries were conducted," an SPF spokesman told The Straits Times. "Among the exhibits seized are a long-sleeved T-shirt, a pair of denim jeans, a pair of shoes, a 'tote' bag, and a pair of headphones for investigation."
An eyewitness reported seeing a man spray paint the word "democracy" onto the war memorial to World War I dead on Tuesday evening.
The man fled when confronted by the the eyewitness.
Launched in the wake of the Boston Marathon tragedy, it was inevitable that the manhunt by the Singapore police would come under close scrutiny by Singaporeans.
That Singapore's law enforcers have successfully delivered a suspect within three days indicates that security protocols for tracking a person of interest works - and works reassuringly well indeed.
Police may not always get who they want to find all the time. And some cases may take awhile longer to crack while the trail may run cold for complex cases.
But every crime scene investigation challenges crime busters to see if their training, their investigative tools and protocols and their police instincts will pay dividends.
It did for the Cenotaph case. If one views this case as a dress rehearsal for a manhunt after a terrorist incident, it is probable that the same SOPs would be adopted to track down and apprehend the person(s) of interest.
The SPF is unlikely to say how it found the man but it is no secret that Singapore's city centre has a dense network of surveillance cameras keeping an eye on the place.
Running from the scene of crime would have been futile as investigators would only have to draw range rings around the Cenotaph to zoom in on cameras that would have captured the person's escape route.
It would have entailed painstaking police work putting together a jigsaw puzzle from footage captured hither and thither. But the police did it and this blog is not alone in cheering the result of all their hardwork and long nights.
After all the publicity linked to the "sticker lady" incident, one would have thought would-be vandals wouldn't be so stupid to test the system again, so soon. Well, someone did.
It is now over to the Singapore justice system.
Well done SPF.
This was a very disrespectful to vandalise a memorial to the dead.
ReplyDeleteIf he wanted he should erect a fresh memorial to democracy in Singapore.
spf is on the ball, man.
ReplyDeleteWhere got problem?
ReplyDeletesame people show up for protest, small group.
Show eye witness the susual suspects and kau teem liow.
This is not Kaiser Sosay.
;)
How about someone who vandalise a living person by seditous him or her.Did the police took action?SPF no ball.
ReplyDeleteanon 7:26 pm, why are you mumbling and talking rubbish here again ?
ReplyDeleteAfter the recent bombing during Boston marathon, there's talk over here (ie, USA) of installing more CCTV cameras in public areas. I'm guessing many countries, including SG, will be doing that. It may be time to buy the stocks of companies making these CCTVs.
ReplyDeletehave you been to london, england recently ? there's at least one cctv in every street corner in london. smile, you're on candid camera in london.
ReplyDeleteTry not to read too much into the capabilities of the police forece here, one of the most useful pieces of information probably came from the two eyewitnesses on the scene, which would have allowed the police to trace back the person through CCTV.
ReplyDeleteIn the case where CCTV coverage is lacking (e.g. many public housing estates), or when there isn't much motivation to apprehend a suspect (minor petty crimes like carpark theft or loanshark harassment), the victims are pretty much left on their own.
Still, the act itself was quite despicable seeing how it was so near ANZAC day, and let's not confuse what was written in grafitti with what TRUE democracy advocates are working towards here (despite what one new minister wrote on FB, he's pretty much confused himself, it seems).
Agree totally. When it comes to "petty" crime in the heartlands like loanshark harassment, where the same methods and infrastructure can be utilised to nab the culprits, police action is lacking. Suffice to say, they only take action when the crime is high profile as in this situation.
ReplyDelete