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HE tottered nervously on a ledge eight storeys high.

The man, who looked to be in his 40s, could see ant-like figures below gesticulating wildly for him to return to his flat.

A drug raid was in progress at Block 39, Chai Chee Ave. Behind him, Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) officers were pounding on his door. Two friends were scrambling about, frantically looking for a way to escape.

A crowd quickly gathered from the surrounding void decks and car parks.

Hands on lips. Don't jump...

But the man did - and died.


SCDF officers fastening safety nets over the 8th-storey flat's windows after one suspect fell to his death.
As onlookers gawked at his bloodied body, with bamboo poles strewn about him, the drama continued high above.

SCDF officers were rappelling out of a 9th-storey flat to fasten safety nets over the windows below. A safety balloon was set up.

Rumours quickly swirled among the crowd that the trapped men were planning to blow up the flat with gas cylinders.

But two hours later, at about 4.30pm, the drama ended with the men whisked away in police cars.

'REGULAR' EVENT

A police spokesman confirmed that two men in their 40s were arrested for drug-related offences.

In another estate, this would have been fodder for kopitiam talk for weeks.

Here in Chai Chee, however, life seems to go on - if reactions from neighbours are anything to go by.

'Here always happen one, lah,' said a resident, shrugging. He declined to give his name.

Once again, he was finding himself behind blue-and-white police tape, gawking and exchanging notes with neighbours and strangers.

Once more, there is the blue tent on the pavement, blood trickling out from underneath.

In January last year, a woman had fallen to her death at Block 30 just 200m away - also during a drug raid.

CNB said that 'raids can happen anywhere and we do not collect statistics on specific areas, only on a national level'.

But retired police officer DavyChan, a past winner of the Police Gallantry Medal, told The New Paper that whenever drug problems are mentioned, the same few places spring to mind.


One of two Chinese men being arrested for drug-related offences.
'Redhill, Circuit Road, Whampoa...' he said.

'And Chai Chee.'

The lift that leads to the suspects' flat can almost pass off as a low-end Central Business Disctrict office elevator.

There's mood lighting where the cement pavement ends at the tiled lobby. There's a snazzy information panel and a digital screen display. It stops at every floor.

But inside, ugly cigarette butts stain the floor.

'Old people, the handicapped, poor people' is how 37-year-old money changer T N Mohd described Chai Chee Ave's residents.

'I don't like to walk around here at night because there are a lot of crazy people around,' he said. 'They have long hair, they shout at you...'

The suspects' grille gate is white but it's not a proud, clean white.

It's hastily painted, with the original blue peeking out in patches. It's a white to whitewash shame - from the mark of loan sharks.

'Horse-racing lah, gambling lah,' 74-year-old retiree Ah Phua said of the activities in his neighbourhood. He has been living there for more than 20years.

'Many single-parent families live here,' said another resident, a woman in her 40s, almost whispering. She, too, declined to be named.

You'll find that here, the lifts tell one story; the stairs tell another.

Walk down, and you scratch beneath the pretty upgraded facade.

An overwhelming stench sticks with you from the 6th floor to the 4th. Someone had defecated on a staircase landing. And some unlucky chap had walked all over it.

Junk spilled out onto the narrow corridors: Cracked pails, frayed baskets, old boxes with older shoes and stacks of plastic chairs, the kind you see at kopitiams and funerals.

Peek into their homes and you see flats cluttered from floor to ceiling with more of the same.

In this estate, the corridors have railings on the sides. Its older residents need them.

Down the corridor, the cover of an electrical box dangled open, hanging by a wire. The lift lobby was almost blocked by a disused bed.

Mr Jamal, a 72-year-old retiree, lives directly upstairs from the flat which was raided.

He was about to go out for lunch at the kopitiam when he heard a loud thud. He looked out of the window and saw a body sprawled below.

The body faced upwards. But MrJamal didn't recognise the man.

'I don't mix around much. There are many dangerous people around here,' he said.

He knows there are drug addicts around.

'But I don't want to ask too many questions and make people fed up with me. I am old already, just waiting to die.'

Matter-of-factly, he indicated the windows where SCDF officers had rappelled off to secure nets over the flat below.

'NONE OF MY BUSINESS'

As policemen rushed in and out of his flat for more than an hour, he had sat on his sofa, silently watching.

'It's none of my business,' he said. 'But I did help them move my shelf away. It has wheels so it isn't heavy.'

Downstairs, the crowd had melted away.

As the blue-and-white plastic strips were taken down, Bangladeshi worker Ibrahim Sekendar stepped up with his high-pressure water hose.

He has done this before.

'31, 30, 29, 24, 39...' he said in halting English, listing out the blocks where he has scrubbed blood off cement before.

Whether they were suicides or drug raids he's not quite sure. He just cleans.

'Like this, okay,' he said, with an almost reassuring air.

The last time it was messier, he added, indicating how the victim had landed with his head on the edge of a kerb.

He gets to work, spraying soap powder over the blood stain and training the water jet on it, methodically moving from one end to the other.

In less than a minute, the blood was gone.

The pavement looked as good as new.

Source: http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story