MANILA RELIEVES 11 COPS IN MISTAKEN IDENTITY SHOOTING
2 dead when police open fire on vehicle carrying injured woman to hospital
MANILA
TEN Philippine police officers who mistakenly shot at a vehicle and killed two of its passengers on Thursday have been relieved of their duties, the capital’s police chief said yesterday as he ordered an investigation into the incident.
Metro Manila’s top officer Oscar Albayalde said the vehicle, which was carrying seven people, including a woman who had been shot earlier that night, was on its way to a hospital when police opened fire after mistaking it for one driven by the woman’s assailant.
The police officers from Mandaluyong city, part of greater Manila, were earlier called to a suburb here following an earlier shooting during an argument between residents, said Albayalde.
The wounded woman later died and one of her companions in the van was also killed while two others were wounded, he added.
Albayalde also relieved the chief of Mandaluyong police of his command pending the investigation.
He said the police officers might have been given wrong information because they were told by village officials that the passengers of the vehicle were armed.
“We can’t totally blame them,” Albayalde said.
He added that the village watchmen had been the first to open fire on the van, but said police would investigate why they had firearms, which were not normally issued to such personnel.
Albayalde said 36 shells from fired rounds had been recovered and that the guns of the police and watchmen would be checked to see who had fired on the van.
“They said that practically all of them fired their guns. It was only some guys who arrived last who did not fire their guns,” Albayalde said, referring to the responding policemen.
Videos of the incident, aired on local television, show policemen with guns drawn, surrounding the van as gunshots ring out.
“We are not hiding anything here. We’re not discounting the possibility... that there may be overkill or violation of our POP,” Albayalde said, referring to police operational procedures.
Duterte’s spokesman Harry Roque, in a statement yesterday, said: “(The) matter will be investigated fully even if there appears to be excessive force utilised by police authorities.”
He also stressed that the policemen involved had been disarmed and their movements restricted while the case was being investigated.
Both the Justice Department and the Commission on Human Rights said they would investigate the shooting as well.
Philippine police are already facing unprecedented scrutiny due to concerns about their conduct during anti-narcotics operations.
Several opinion surveys indicated dwindling trust in police accounts of operations that had killed close to 4,000 people.
Human rights groups and political opponents said executions of drug users and small-time peddlers had been widespread, but police insisted those killed were dealers who had put up violent resistance. Agencies