'Do you hate me?': Witness says Laguna Park resident tried to jump from 13th floor after incident left man dead
When residents at Laguna Park condominium heard desperate shouts and saw a domestic helper pulling a man back from a ledge, several of them jumped in to help - only to hear him ask if the world hated him.
The scene was the aftermath of an alleged altercation between two men on Nov 13 that left a 68-year-old man injured. He was taken to hospital unconcious, where he later died.
Police arrested a 23-year-old man at the scene for voluntarily causing grievous hurt by a dangerous weapon, and seized two penknives as case exhibits.
Man attempts to jump
Mr Ang, who has lived at the block for more than 10 years, told Stomp he first noticed a commotion on the 13th floor while he was on the ground floor.
He looked up and heard a domestic helper screaming, then saw a man's body bobbing back and forth over the 13th-floor ledge.
Sprinting to the 13th floor, he saw a man lying on the ground in front of the staircase, with blood on his shirt and droplets of blood on the floor along the corridor. A security guard and another resident had also rushed to the scene.
Mr Ang and the guard immediately pulled the younger man away from the ledge, while the other resident performed CPR on the man on the floor - presumably the 68-year-old victim.
He said that the younger man was agitated, repeatedly saying that people were bullying him and that the world "hated" him. He also told them that he had autism.
"Will you bully me? Do you hate me?" Mr Ang recalled the man asking as he struggled against the two people restraining him.
"He's scared, you know," Mr Ang said. "He's really thinking that the world is such a bad place and he'd rather just die."
Police restrain 23-year-old
Mr Ang spent about 30 minutes talking to the man to calm him down, asking him what had happened and how he was feeling.
But when the police arrived, the man became agitated again, demanding to know if the residents had called the authorities. A photo provided by the eyewitness shows the man later handcuffed and pinned to the ground by five officers.
In an earlier report, residents told Stomp they heard muffled shouting. A Stomper who lives in the estate also commented that the shouting began around 12.45pm.
"Someone (was) screaming 'help' very loudly and many neighbours from same block and next block were looking out." the resident said. "We live on an upper floor and it was very loud and clear."
Mr Ang described the incident as a "tragedy for both sides", and suggested that the situation may have been triggered by "mean comments" made by the victim.
"We create all this hatred that we don't think we do, but actually exists in society," he said. "I feel that the awareness about this issue is not very high. Especially when we don't understand how people with special needs feel and think."
