Cases of physical and verbal abuse of Home Team officers amounted to a total of 484 instances last year — more than one per day — stated Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam yesterday at an awards ceremony at the Home Team Academy.
The issue, which has been worsening in recent years, saw a 65 percent increase in attacks against officers from 2014 to 2016, reported Channel NewsAsia.
According to TODAY, several police officers revealed that it’s not uncommon for them to have vulgarities and “very demeaning remarks” flung their way.
“From our perspective, there is zero tolerance for this,” Shanmugam said, adding that the Home Affairs Ministry is working with the Attorney-General’s Chambers to push for “deterrent sentences, harsher sentences” for those who stand in the way of public servants’ work.
Examples he cited included the prison sentence of Jeffrey Yeo Ek Boon, who slapped a police officer — his jail term went from one to 10 weeks — as well as Aussie offender Jason Peter Darragh, who received an increased sentence from six-and-a-half months to eight months for assaulting police officers at Changi Airport.
Shanmugam admitted the difficulty of officers’ jobs in dealing with violent people, explaining that officers have to use reasonable force when arresting and restraining offenders.
“We do not want to cause unnecessary or excessive hurt,” he said. “We also do not want any kind of image, caught on video, that can do harm to our own force, and morale as well.”
Other recent instances of civilians behaving violently towards officers include the man who tussled with three cops in Ang Mo Kio, the drunk New Zealander who displayed aggressive behavior at Changi Airport, and the British man who punched a policeman outside Zouk.
