By NecroHexr
Since we Singaporeans love to complain, here's a genuine complaint I'd like to share!
First, a little backstory. I'm generally a nervous and anxious kid, I haven't been diagnosed with anything but I can safely assure you I seize up when I talk to people, especially staff who are serving me or people with authority.
Naturally, I don't have a lot of friends (2 good ones in total), and I had just graduated from secondary school. I wanted to be more independent; I was a homebody throughout my 16 years of my life and nobody has ever asked me to go out.
Anyway, I went out a few times during my school holidays, to (I know this sounds silly) "practise being alone", because I know no one was going to drag me out and I had to do it myself.
At the same time, I was trying to do some amateur vlogging to practise my speaking (my voice is very raspy which is bad for my presentations at school), cinematography and editing (well also for school).
So, first two trips - okay! I was happy. Things were starting to work. I was getting better at it.
Then I went down to Labrador Park because I saw some pictures online and the place looked very cool. So I went down, did some videoing with my camera around the park, then headed down the pier when my nightmare begun.
While I was using my phone to take some photographs of some flowers growing along the side in the concrete, I noticed a pair of uniformed policemen strutting around asking other people a bunch of questions. In particular one Malay bloke who was just enjoying the view. I felt bad for him.
I slipped past them thinking I had escaped, and sat down to relax at a nearby bench. I relaxed. The weather was good with a cooling breeze blowing; I felt great doing what I was doing. No problem at all.
Then two different plainclothes policemen approached me from behind and totally caught me completely off-guard.
Happened very quick. Flashed me their IDs (they were indeed the real deal) and I started panicking. I didn't do anything wrong, but I was feeling a lot of irrational fear because of my lack of social skills.
They saw my camera and started bullshitting about me spying for terrorists, that I was filming Pulau Tekong from a distance or the private property in another direction. Keep in mind I had a shitty camera with no attachments, no telephoto lens whatsoever. So these accusations were completely baseless! And I was just a kid, sitting there enjoying the view. I seriously don't get why they saw me as a threat?
More at https://www.domainofexperts.com/2018/03/police-officers-searched-me-17-year-old.html
