To say that the Sept. 17 release of Grand Theft Auto V was highly-anticipated in the gaming community would be like saying Harry Potter fans wouldn’t mind if J.K. Rowling ever got around to writing another book about the boy wizard. The steal’em, drive’em, shoot’em world of the game’s newest offering proved such an enticement for fans that three gamers allegedly tricked mall security into thinking they were cops — all so they could cut the line of 500 customers waiting to buy GTA V.

According to the New York Daily News, the three Staten Island men showed up at the mall in what appeared to be an unmarked police car, all decked out with lights and sirens, no less, around midnight early Tuesday morning.

One of the men happens to be an auxiliary volunteer with a NYC precinct, so he and another guy flashed fake badges, while the third showed mall security a police shield tattoo. Because that’s the most convincing way to assure people you’re a cop…?

So what was this police emergency they had to deal with while on patrol? The small matter of skipping around 500 people who had been waiting outside for hours at the gaming store to buy GTA V. The threesome reportedly went inside, cool as can be, and bought the game.

Here’s where their genius plan went awry: Perhaps riding high on an adrenaline rush from scooping up the game in advance of everyone else,  whoever was driving that fake police car made an illegal U-turn and ran a few stop signs. That’s a great way to get real cops to notice you, by the way.

Police pulled the trio over, at which point the man who volunteers as an auxiliary officer reportedly claimed, “I’m with NYPD,” while another said he’d borrowed a pal’s badge. All things that make them not real cops.

The three were arrested and charged with impersonating a police officer.

They should have to give their game(s) to one of those people who waited in line all night, eh?

Young Staten Island men impersonate police officers to skip line to buy Grand Theft Auto V [New York Daily News]

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