A Singapore senior staff sergeant was charged in court yesterday (Oct 19) for deliberately breaking the walking stick of a disabled elderly man whom he arrested. According to the Singapore court, the incident happened at Bugis Waterloo Street on 31 Oct 2016 when the disabled elderly was arrested for begging in public.
A camera footage first captured, policeman Seah Chin Peng, talking to the elderly man on a wheelchair, and then he threw the walking stick to the ground before stepping on it. The elderly man was then wheeled away and escorted to the Cantonment Police Complex for questioning. Later in the day, the senior staff sergeant called his supervisor, police inspector Paige Tan, saying that he had accidentally stepped on the walking stick, damaging it.
A few days later on Nov 3, the police inspector realised that that the walking stick was not in police custody and asked the senior staff sergeant on its whereabouts. The senior police officer lied that “members of the public” had thrown the stick away but a police body camera footage found that Seah Chin Peng personally placing the walking stick in the patrol car.
The senior staff sergeant policeman testified in court claiming that he “could not remember the cause” of why he stepped on the walking stick, and blamed his stroke earlier in the year for the “memory lapse”.