One Year On: The First Police Report
One Year On: The First Police Report
Exactly this day, a year ago, the very first police report was filed against Mercury Jamie Alice. Sitting writer J-min recounts the beginning of a very long and drawn out journey.
Content warning: Sexual harassment, death threats, etc
Exactly a year ago, the victims of Mercury filed the very first police report about the serial harassment campaign that they had experienced.
This first police report, filed by yours truly, would be the first of 56 police reports filed by 17 victims across the year. The content of reports filed range from harassment, stalking, doxxing, death threats, rape threats, molotov cocktail threats, similar threats against our loved ones, and more.
To commemorate and highlight the one year that the victims have gone through, Sitting takes a look at the circumstances that led to the first report, the fallout, and what the past year means for the victims.
“Brown Dot”, D-Day, and the legend of the ghillie suit
The full one year of the victims’ torment begins slight before the first police report on 18 June 2022, the day of Pink Dot 14. Prior to this, there had been several displeasures in the community with the organisers of Pink Dot.
According to one volunteer who volunteered at Pink Dot 14, the organisers had told volunteers at the booths that there would be no mention of race or religion at the event. For the many people who were frustrated about Pink Dot being a majority Chinese movement, this was the cherry on top. The idea of doing something about Pink Dot’s silencing on race and religious issues was considered by some volunteers.
In particular, several brown queers who made Harvey’s acquaintance saw this as an opportunity to highlight Harvey’s story in tandem with pointing out Pink Dot’s refusal to commit to racial and religious diversity. The plan, led by one Indian queer person, was to hold up brown cloth backed by placards to put a brown dot in the sea of pink during the light up.
Together with the support of around ten people and Harvey, Brown Dot members put a tarp down at Pink Dot, negotiated with Pink Dot volunteers on the formation photo and the banners, and did most of the chanting after the event was over.
Unbeknownst to us, Mercury was at Pink Dot looking around for Harvey. She might have seen me, as noted in the screenshot below sent to a Brown Dot member on 25 June. It should be noted that Mercury’s observations are almost entirely accurate; I did carry Harvey’s backpack out of Hong Lim Park as she was exhausted. Whether Mercury did wear a ghillie suit and followed us out of the park is yet to be known.
Between 18 June and 29 June, Mercury, using several burner accounts, contacted several people involved in Brown Dot, or were associated with Brown Dot. At first she was begging people to consider advocating for her instead of Harvey (Mercury was facing a charge for an anthrax hoax).
This then it quickly devolved into a plethora of harassment, of which I’ve curated a fine selection: 1. sexual harassment of several people, 2. the sending of sex tapes and nude photos of Mercury’s girlfriend and ex-girlfriends, 3. insisting that she had witnessed Brown Dot “hidden in a tree while wearing a ghillie suit”, 4. saying that she had stalked members of Brown Dot before at their residences, and crucially, 5. expressing sexual possession over me. (This list is the highlight reel and by no means exhaustive.)
Other parts of the initial highlight reel include threatening to “force-fuck and old lady in order to fulfill a strategic need”, and “pay a visit to number six Lengkok Bahru”. At that material time, Harvey’s grandmother was housed at a nursing home at 6 Lengkok Bahru.
In the chat group used to coordinate amongst the victims of harassment, a police report and its accompanying text was being drafted in the days leading up to 29 June; intended to be filed before the Lengkok Bahru deadline.
Enter Sarah Cheong: The First Police Report is Filed
The whole idea of being generally and mundanely harassed is that it really does not compare to someone holding a knife to your throat. There is a crime being committed, but what it really needed was an oomph of Legitimate Harassment against the person who made the report.
This opportunity fell into my lap just past midnight on 29 June; I’ll let the screenshots from my phone speak for themselves.
If I came off as unbothered, it’s because I decided to troll and changed my WhatsApp name to “Sarah Cheong”, exhausted Gen X aunt with four children working in sales. Needless to say, Mercury dropped some bars (“You don’t even fucking remember fucking Mercury Jamie Alice!?”), and for the first time, contacted me and directly told me she had a desire to circulate the video of our sexual encounter in 2020.
Immediately after this, Carissa and I went to Ang Mo Kio Police HQ, filed a report, and expedited it to an investigation officer tagged to Mercury’s existing charges. That evening, an IO contacted me and asked for a picture of me, probably to cross reference, Carissa and I had some late-night fried noodles, and we all went on with our lives.
A “landmark case”?
Those who already know the end of the story know that sometime during mid-July, Mercury made good on her promise and circulated the video to hundreds of thousands. This circulation included my exact address, obtained from a highly irresponsible “organisation” who did not protect my private data, as well as to multiple school chat groups that I had to personally intervene to prevent the video from spreading.
Carissa would go on to discover Mercury impersonating herself and Lune sometime in early July, and would confront Mercury. Mercury had used impersonation accounts of Lune to approach Lune’s acquaintances, one of whom had accidentally leaked Carissa’s address to Mercury. The harassment campaign of late June would pale in comparison to what the victims would go on to go through in the coming year.
I’m writing this from 10,000 kilometres away, and my friends like Carissa continue to soldier on back home. Looking back at 29 June, where we were facing mere harassment, and seeing the turn it took to become a fight for our lives is both hilarious and shocking.
For more than 365 days, this has been our reality.