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Cisco officer’s gun goes off in MRT toilet
<cite class="byline vcard">By Ewen Boey | SingaporeScene – <abbr title="2011-03-20T05:30:49Z">Sun, Mar 20, 2011 1:30 PM SGT
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A Cisco officer's gun goes off in an MRT toilet on Saturday. (AP file photo)
An auxiliary police officer is believed to have fired his gun by accident while on duty at Bukit Gombak MRT station on Saturday.
The incident occurred between 6.30pm and 7pm in the staff toilet of the MRT station and no one was injured, reported The Straits Times.
The 28-year-old Certis Cisco officer was on assignment at the station.
It is usual for auxiliary police officers to be deployed in areas for duties such as the safe transportation of money to and from ATMs and banks.
A police spokesman confirmed that they received a call around 7pm regarding an incident of an accidental discharge of a firearm at the station by an auxiliary police officer.
When contacted, a Certis Cisco spokesman declined to comment as police investigations are under way.
This is not the first time a service weapon has been fired.
From 2000 to last year, more than 20 cases were reported in the media about police or auxiliary police officers firing their weapons.
Of these, 10 were suicides and four were accidental discharges.
In 1999, a Cisco constable misfired his revolver while trying to free it when it got stuck in a chair he was sitting in.
Veteran investigator Jeffery Ang, who spent 27 years in the police force, told the same paper that all firearms will have safety measures such as a safety catch or a double-action trigger, which makes it difficult to fire off a round.
In addition, there is a flap on pistol holsters to prevent the accidental drawing of the weapon.
"It is quite difficult to misfire a weapon if all safety procedures have been followed," said the former Criminal Investigation Department officer.
"For this to happen, there must be a lapse somewhere."
There are over 40,000 auxiliary police officers in Singapore today from Certis Cisco, Aetos Security Management and SIngapore Airport Terminal Services Security Services.
