Praised for public spirited acts, community partnership
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Receiving the awards yesterday were (from left): Mr Edmund Shao; Mr Tan Kay Huat, who helped to stop a man from stealing cash cards from vehicles; SingPost's Nora Yasmin Mohamed Zain, Tahir Saleh and Lee Mei Chan; Ms Winnie Tan, with Mr Abdul Hamid Abdul Aziz and Madam Fatimah Hayon, for helping to stop the shoe thief; and Mr Phillip Mah representing Keppel Offshore and Marine, one of the firms given the Community Partnership Awards.
PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
Jeanell Kiew
While Mr Abdul Hamid Abdul Aziz was getting some fresh air outside his Bukit Batok East Avenue 3 flat on March 16, he did not expect to see it raining shoes.
But there, on the fourth floor of the Housing Board block opposite his, was a man throwing shoes from the corridor.
The 56-year-old school bus driver remembered that his children's shoes had gone missing from outside his flat a few months earlier and he alerted two of his fellow Citizens on Patrol (COP) members to contact the police.
He then headed to the ground floor with another COP member and saw that the man was there too, picking up the shoes he had thrown earlier. Before he could cycle away, Mr Hamid snapped photographs of the footwear fiend. About 30 minutes later, the shoe-stealer was caught by the police, thanks to his photos.
Mr Hamid was among six people who received the Public Spiritedness Award yesterday at Jurong Police Division.
"People in the neighbourhood had been complaining of missing shoes. I'm glad we stopped the thief," said Mr Hamid, who has been volunteering as a COP member for more than 20 years.
Another recipient, Mr Edmund Shao, 29, took photographs of suspects in an assault case, which led to their arrest. Mr Shao, who works in business services development, had earlier spotted six young men beating up two others in a multipurpose hall along Jelebu Road, in Bukit Panjang.
He had also provided police with the licence plate number of the car some of the men fled in.
Separately, the police presented four Singapore Post (SingPost) staff with Community Partnership Awards. They had helped to prevent 10 victims on 10 separate occasions from losing $5,500 in total to various scams.
One case last year involved a love scam. A retired middle-aged woman wanted to remit US$800 (S$1,096) to a person she had met online. But the intended recipient's Nigerian account raised red flags for SingPost staff Nora Yasmin Mohamed Zain.
"Love scams are quite common. Some telltale signs of such scams include the customer withholding information about the receiver, and the country of the receiver's bank account," said the 34-year-old, who has been working at SingPost for 14 years.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Devrajan Bala, commander of Jurong Police Division, advised the public not to easily trust people they have not dealt and met with.
He added that they should always check that the transaction is with legitimate entities, especially if it involves a large sum of money.
The Community Partnership Awards were given to 22 companies in total.
