Police Investigating Fake News About Raid in Clementi That Involved Firearms

As Nostradamus once said, you shouldn’t believe everything you see on the internet.

Netizens can upload pictures and videos of an incident and completely fabricate a story to go along with it, and we’d never know.

We tend to take the word of netizens online not because we’re a very trusting species but because we’re too lazy to verify the truthfulness of a post.

And once a falsehood is shared several times online, several thousand people could end up believing in something that’s not true.

Fake News Spreads About Raid in Clementi That Involved Firearms

On Thursday (18 March), a video of police officers gaining entry into a flat in Clementi made the rounds on social media.

It claimed that the officers were breaking into the home of a suspected drug trafficker. There were also allegations circulating that firearms and 20kg of heroin were seized by the police, and that Indian and Malay persons were arrested in the incident.

Netizens even alleged that one of the traffickers tried to evade arrest by jumping down the block.

It sounds fascinating, but there’s just one problem with this story; it’s completely fake.

The police later debunked the claims going around social media, and confirmed them to be false.

They maintained that they had found no firearms or narcotics, and that no one had attempted to evade arrest by jumping down the block.

One such post is a Facebook post by Singapore Uncensored, which includes an article with the headline “Police raids drug dealer with rifles, 20kg heroin found jumping down HDB to escape”. The post and article are no longer accessible.

So, what really happened?

38YO Arrested Under Mental Health Act

The police said that on Wednesday (17 March), they received a call about a Caucasian man who had locked himself inside a residential unit at Block 309 Clementi Avenue 4.

Police officers and Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) personnel soon arrived on the scene.

Since the man was uncooperative with police and assessed to be a danger to himself, the police decided to force their way into the unit at around 12.20pm.

They eventually apprehended the 38-year-old man under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act. He is currently being investigated for suspected consumption of controlled drugs.

The police said that the man is not a drug trafficker, as some netizens had speculated.

Here’s their post:

Police Investigating False Claims

The police are now investigating the circulation of such falsehoods.

Unbeknownst to some, circulating falsehoods is an offence under the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act.

Any person convicted of transmitting or causing to be transmitted a message knowing it to be false or fabricated could be jailed for up to 3 years, fined up to S$10,000, or both.

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