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AFTERMATH: Officers from the Special Operations Command standing over the 43-year-old suspect in Outram Park MRT station. The man suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the chest. -- ST PHOTOS: WONG KWAI CHOW
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ARGENTINIAN tourist Alberto Taphanel heard a loud crack and thought the noise came from the train pulling into Outram Park MRT station, where he was.
Then he heard a groan, and as the knot of commuters parted around him, he saw a man on the floor, and two policemen approaching - one with his pistol still trained on the fallen man.
Mr Taphanel, 47, who runs a catamaran charter service in Bali, said some women screamed and backed off and others ran away, but some, like him, edged forward for a closer look.
The man was lying face down just centimetres from the sliding doors separating waiting commuters from the train tracks. Next to him was a 20cm-long knife, its handle bound in masking tape, which the police officer kicked away.
For a few minutes 'the officer continued to point the gun at the body, in case he got up', Mr Taphanel said.
A woman who came forward and identified herself as a nurse checked the body for a pulse - and found none.
Mr Taphanel said: 'When I first heard the sound, it never crossed my mind it came from a gun. This is Singapore, which has a strong reputation for being safe.'
He had been waiting for a North-East Line train bound south for HarbourFront station, and apparently so was the man who was shot.
Another commuter, Mr Henley Ho, 32 and between jobs, was also waiting for a train, one headed north, when he heard a commotion.
He said in a telephone interview he saw a policeman shouting, drawing his gun and shooting a man in the chest.
A police spokesman said the man, aged 43, had pulled the knife from a bag when he realised the police were closing in on him for stabbing a man at a nearby food centre half an hour before.
Cornered, he went on the offensive and charged at the police officers, one of whom fired a shot at close range. The bullet is believed to have lodged in his chest.
Commuters expressed concern that the shooting had taken place in a crowded area, but Mr Taphanel reasoned that the officer must have shot him from really close range, because 'it would be unthinkable if the bullet had grazed someone or gone through the body and hit someone else'.
The commander of Central Police Division, Superintendent Lau Peet Meng, said the officer had no choice but to shoot the man:
'The armed and dangerous suspect approached my officers in a threatening manner in close proximity... Considering he was suspected of having just killed another man, the officer had no choice but to open fire.'
As more police arrived on the scene, some commuters who thought at first a civil defence exercise was in progress, were bemused.
They realised something was afoot when white cloth and sheets of brown paper went up on the four glass doors near the body.
Station officers signalled to passengers alighting at the station to leave via doors other than those four.
Over at Chinatown MRT station, a stop away from Outram Park, commuters were told not to board certain carriages, apparently because their doors would open where the body lay at Outram Park.
cheekin@sph.com.sg
elena@sph.com.sg
carolynq@sph.com.sg
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