No escape for wannabe cop

College student caught for impersonating officer

BATU PAHAT: Being a big and fanatical fan of the police force did not get a 19-year-old college student off the hook when he tried to impersonate a police officer here yesterday.

To feed his passion, the teen acquired a full set of police attire and paraphernalia.

Having put on the gear and taking pride in seeing himself in it, he decided to take it a step further yesterday.

Clad in full police uniform wearing the rank of inspector, he went on a “crime prevention patrol” on his motorcycle at about 3am.

As he approached KM19 of Jalan Kluang, he spotted several traffic policemen carrying out an operation against illegal racers or mat rempit.

Sources said the suspect, from a vocational college, approached the policemen and introduced himself, telling them that he was from the state police headquarters.

The teenager also claimed “he was from the CID intelligence unit and had been carrying out surveillances on illegal racing activities in the area for over a week”.

Suspicious of the claims, a policeman did a check on the teen’s motorcycle registration number, and requested for his “police authority card”.

When he failed to produce the card, the ruse was over.

Policemen at the scene gave the teen a pat-down and discovered that he was an impersonator.

Apart from the full uniform, also recovered from the teen was a fake police authority card, a toy gun, a bulletproof vest, three small tactical knives and handcuff keys.

Investigators learnt that the teen had purchased the police paraphernalia from online stores.

He had allegedly made the fake police authority card from a sample he had downloaded online.

He confessed that it was the first time he had gone on “patrol duty” wearing a police uniform and gear.

Sources said the teen is being held for further investigations under a remand order for impersonating a police officer.