When the safety of their children is concerned, many parents can get very protective.
In the heat of the moment, some may even resort to extreme means like engaging in physical violence.
One such father allegedly hit a 71-year-old man in a Tampines 1 lift multiple times on 5 July, causing the latter to lose three teeth.
The bloody affair apparently occurred as the father thought the older man was going to hit his child during a spat between the families.
Both parties have lodged police reports on the incident.
According to Shin Min Daily News, the dispute occurred at around 7pm in a lift in Tampines 1.
Source: Google Maps
The elderly man’s daughter shared that she and her family were heading down to the basement carpark from the fourth floor after a day of shopping at the mall.
She was with her parents, her 17-year-old daughter, and her 35-year-old friend at the time.
When the lift stopped at the third floor, a couple who looked to be in their 30s entered with two young children and a baby in a stroller.
This made the lift very crowded as there was a total of 10 people inside.
As the lift was going down, the woman claimed that the wheel of the stroller accidentally rolled over her father’s foot.
This prompted her to tell the couple not to “come too close”.
Unfortunately, the mother of the three children did not take the comment well.
She apparently rebutted the woman, asking her to take the escalator instead if she was unhappy.
The two women then began to argue.
The elderly man’s daughter told Shin Min Daily News that her father then raised his hand in a bid to stop the verbal spat.
However, his actions were apparently misunderstood by the kids’ father, who assumed the older man was going to hit the baby.
In retaliation, the father allegedly started punching the older man in the face repeatedly.
Source: Shin Min Daily News
However, he did not stop there — the younger man reportedly continued his assault even after the lift reached the ground floor.
There, he sent the children out of the lift and kept on beating the elderly man until passers-by came in to separate them.
As a result of the blows, the 71-year-old man’s mouth was bloody and three of his teeth became loose. He eventually had to extract the teeth.
Source: Shin Min Daily News
The friend of the elderly man’s daughter also sustained bruises on her hand and wrist while trying to break up the fight.
Due to the stitches in his mouth, the elderly man has only been able to drink porridge as he cannot wear his dentures during the two-month recovery period.
His daughter added that the man has diabetes and cardiovascular disease, so doctors gave him an eight-day medical leave.
She additionally claimed that her father feels very wronged as he got beaten up for no reason.
After the incident, the woman and her friend went to a nearby police station to report the incident.
However, the other family had a vastly different account of the spat.
Shin Min Daily News went down to the mall on Tuesday (11 July) and spoke to a shopkeeper who witnessed the aftermath of the incident.
She had told the couple and their children to sit inside her store while waiting for the police. This is when the father told her what happened.
He alleged that when they were about to enter the lift, the other family inside was already very hostile and remarked something like, “Is having a baby such a big deal?” in Cantonese, completely unprovoked.
Furthermore, he also claimed that the four women in the other family started hitting his wife when their stroller accidentally hit the elderly man.
The father purportedly did not retaliate at first. However, he later hit the elderly man because the latter allegedly overturned the stroller, causing the baby to sustain head injuries.
The shopkeeper noted that the baby was crying uncontrollably and that his forehead was bleeding when she saw them.
Thankfully, medics soon arrived to stop the bleeding and sent him to the hospital.
The father has since filed a police report as well.
According to the elderly man’s daughter, police informed them the baby in the stroller sustained a scratch.
However, she insists that the family did not touch the baby and hopes the truth of the matter will come to light through a review of the lift’s security footage.
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Featured image adapted from Shin Min Daily News.
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