YouTube fame: Lip-synching Indonesia cop fired

YouTube fame: Lip-synching Indonesia cop fired

First, Indonesian police were angry about a young cop's YouTube lip-synching antics. Then, they championed him for softening the image of an unloved force. Now, after he put stardom over police duty, Norman Kamaru has been fired.

"Who does he think he is?" said Lieutenant-Colonel Lisma Dunggio, the clearly frustrated police spokesman from his hometown. "What made him famous was his uniform."

The video of Kamaru trying to lift the spirits of a heartbroken colleague by shimmying and lip-synching to the Bollywood hit Chaiyya Chaiyya went viral in April.

Initially, the top brass was furious. But that changed when the public rallied to support the charismatic 26-year-old.

Suddenly, Kamaru was being flown from his dusty police outpost of Gorontalo to the capital, flanked by high-ranking officers who smiled broadly as squealing girls begged for his autograph.

Source: AP
Published Dec 9 2011