Cosplayer’s replica gun gets mistaken for real deal; police officers track him down to find his stash

On the morning of Sept 23, 2015, a 26-year-old cosplay enthusiast caused a passer-by to react in alarm and make a police report when he played around with his replica weapon in public. Timothy Tan Zhiyu was alone in an open air carpark by Yishun Ring Road (again, with the Yishun shenanigans) when he took a replica gun out from the front of his pants, cocked it in pretence of it being an actual weapon, and hid it within the folds of his clothes.

Tan’s antics, which resulted in a team of 50 (real) police officers mobilized to track him down, got him slapped with a $1,000 fine yesterday. The urgent operation saw officers from the Special Tactics and Rescue team and the Special Operations Command join forces to interview people and search through closed-circuit television footage (CCTV) from numerous HDB blocks in the neighborhood.

Officers finally came across CCTV footage of Tan holding his replica gun in a lift at Block 331 Yishun Ring Road and raided his flat. It was only after the arrest that they realized the ‘weapon’ was actually made of hard plastic — it didn’t have the ability to fire any bullets.

Tan then admitted he’d bought it at a shop in Funan DigitaLife Mall — being a cosplayer for years, his preference was to dress up as a Swat officer or a United States Marines personnel, and plastic replica guns were part of the costume. All in all, 14 replica rifles and two replica handguns were seized from his home.

According to The Straits Times, the police have since raided the store Tan frequented as part of investigations into suspected breaches of import and export laws. Tan could have been fined a maximum of $5,000 for displaying threatening behaviour and causing alarm.