Saluting our dedicated officers on the ground!
By: Kamal Hakim
ASP Benjamin Voon, SI Muhammad Fadzly and Sgt Ong Junjie
SI Fadzly (F): There are many tourist spots and commercial areas within the jurisdiction of Marina Bay NPC so we see a lot of different types of cases.
Sgt Junjie (JJ): On 16 July this year, we received a report that a girl had gone missing from her hotel room.
ASP Benjamin (B): We moved quickly and met up with the girl’s parents at their hotel lobby.
JJ: Being tourists, they were understandably distraught and worried as their daughter had gone missing in a foreign country. They also shared with us that she was suffering from anxiety and mental health issues.
B: Learning this, our priority was to find the missing girl to prevent her from any possible harms. I apprised my officers quickly and all of us sprung into action.
F: We needed to quickly come up with a plan. Which likely direction would their daughter have headed off to? How do we best deploy our officers?
B: I’m thankful that my team has a high level of competency. Everyone stepped up to the plate to do what they needed to do.
F: While some of my colleagues went to the command centre to check the CCTVs, the others relayed the descriptions of the missing girl to the Police Operations Command Centre so that they can disseminate the information to all frontline police officers.
JJ: Concurrently, we checked with the parents and learned that their daughter had a location-sharing app activated on her phone. Fadzly and I tracked to her last-known location within the hotel premises where we eventually found her.
B: As she was behaving rather erratically, we discussed with her parents who then decided to send her to a mental health facility to get the care and treatment which she needed.
JJ: However, the daughter was very uncooperative and became very aggressive. We had to make the difficult decision to restrain her for her own safety.
B: I understood that it would be difficult for the parents to see their daughter being placed in restraints.
F: But I have to say, Ben explained the situation to the parents with empathy and consideration. The parents understood that we had their daughter’s safety in mind and we would do our best to restrain her safely and quickly.
JJ: We also understood that she was uncooperative and unwilling to listen to our advice due to her medical condition illness
F: We learned afterwards that the parents had dropped us a compliment on our professional handling of the situation to express their gratitude.
B: Then again, we’re not here for the compliments. We’re all human beings. It is only right that we show compassion to others who need help.
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