Police refutes ‘false impression’ that it conducts checks at homes to enforce safe distancing rules
On Monday, the Mothership website ran an article, quoting a Twitter user, which claimed that a resident in Singapore had received a warning letter from the police for visiting his mother in Jurong West.
SINGAPORE — The police said on Tuesday (April 14) that they do not conduct checks at residential units to enforce Singapore’s elevated safe distancing rules.
They said that they are aware of messages circulating on text messaging platforms that give the false impression that the police are proactively doing such checks during this period when people are told to restrict their movements.
“This is not true. The police urge the public not to spread unsubstantiated information which may cause public alarm,” they added.
On Monday, the Mothership website ran an article, quoting a Twitter user, which claimed that the police conducted a check and issued a warning letter to a resident in Singapore for visiting his mother in Jurong West.
In a series of tweets, the Twitter user @_fitch_ claimed to be the brother of the man who was given the warning letter, and said that the police were doing "random checks… and saw quite a few of us in the living room”.
The Twitter user added: “They issued a warning letter and told us that if the same thing happens… they (the police) will straight away fine (us) S$300 and no more warning.”
The user took down his tweets following the police statement.
In their statement, the police said that they had received a call for assistance on April 11 for a family dispute and had responded at about 9.55pm to the case at a residential unit located at Jurong West Avenue 1.
During the engagement, police officers discovered that there was a gathering of family members. In particular, two were not from the household living in the unit.
“These two were the man who had called for police assistance and his wife,” the police said, adding that the family living at the unit included the caller’s mother, his uncle and other family members.
“The police officers therefore issued a warning to the couple who was not residing there and was not there for an essential purpose, for not complying with the elevated safe distancing measures under the Covid-19 (Temporary Measures) Act 2020.”
The police reiterated that they “do not proactively conduct checks at residential units specifically to enforce these measures”.
“Nonetheless, if the police come across anyone flouting elevated safe distancing measures when attending to other types of incidents at residential units reported by the public, such as the case of family dispute (in Jurong West Avenue 1), the police will take enforcement action.”
