In its statement, police also said there was a gunshot wound to his head and his service revolver was found beside him. (Photo courtesy of Nic Shields)
By Faris Mokhtar and Fann Sim
Police said no foul play is suspected in the death of a 25-year-old auxiliary police officer from Cisco who was found dead inside a toilet cubicle at VivoCity shopping mall Thursday evening.
In its statement, police said there was a gunshot wound to his head and that his service revolver was found beside him. Investigations are still on-going.
On Thursday evening, the police had received a call about an injured person at about 6pm. Paramedics were dispatched and the man was pronounced dead at 6.30pm.
The body was first discovered in a toilet cubicle on the first floor of the building by a security guard working for the mall, said a police spokesman. The cubicle was believed to be locked from inside.
Deryl Ang, commander of auxiliary police force Certis Cisco, told Yahoo! Singapore that the deceased was a Malaysian national who had been employed with the company for the last three years.
He had been deployed as a security officer at the Citibank branch in the mall but a spokesperson for Cisco told Yahoo! Singapore that the deceased was off-duty at the time the incident occurred.
It is understood that his parents are also currently in Singapore. It was also earlier reported that a gunshot was heard being fired.
Meanwhile a spokesperson for Citibank told Yahoo! Singapore that the deceased was a relief officer who had finished his duty and left for the day.
“We are deeply saddened to hear the news of the passing of the Certis Cisco security guard. We will work with the Police to provide whatever information is required to assist their investigations,” said the spokesperson.
When Yahoo! arrived on the scene later in the evening, the area around the first floor toilet beside Goldheart Jewellery was still surrounded by a police barricade.
A crowd of 50 people were still seen milling around the area but gradually dissipated as the shopping centre, which had extended its shopping hours until 11pm for last-minute Christmas shopping, closed its doors. The police moved the corpse out of the toilet about 11.40pm and investigations are continuing.
Danny Tan, who works at Camomila, a shop directly beside the toilet, said he didn't hear any gunshot fired because of the noisy conditions at the shopping mall around the time. He added that a steady stream of customers was around the area at the time due to last minute Christmas shopping.
"Even if I did hear something exceptionally loud, I would assume it to be from the restaurants nearby," he said.
This is not the first time a shot has been fired by a Cisco officer in a toilet. Earlier this year, a 28-year-old officer accidentally fired his service revolver inside a toilet at Bukit Gombak MRT station while on duty.
From 2000 to last year, there have been over 20 reported cases about police or auxiliary police officers firing their weapons. Of these, 10 were suicides and four were accidental discharges.
In 2002, a 50-year-old officer, Constable R. Sathasivam, committed suicide after failing in his attempt to murder his estranged wife at her workplace.
Certis Cisco is one of five commercial Auxiliary Police forces that provide armed security officers to government organizations as well as private companies or individuals in Singapore.
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