Ex-guard frees dozens of hostages in Manila mall
Manila, Philippines — A recently dismissed security guard freed dozens of hostages and was subdued by police after walking out of a shopping mall in the Philippine capital on Monday, ending a daylong hostage crisis in an upscale commercial district near the police and military headquarters, officials said.
The former guard at the Greenhills shopping center, identified by police as Archie Paray, left the mall in San Juan City in metropolitan Manila with the remaining hostages, who were then secured by police. Several others had managed to escape earlier, police said.
“Everyone is in shock, very traumatized. We’ll have to give them time to recover,” said San Juan Mayor Francis Zamora, who ordered an investigation, including into how the suspect was able to enter the mall with a pistol and grenades.
Instead of being immediately arrested, the suspect was allowed to speak for several minutes to journalists and authorities to describe his grievances against his former bosses, whom he accused of corruption and abuse, before police approached and subdued him.
Zamora said the suspect had a pistol with him when he walked down from a second-floor administrative office where he had held dozens of hostages, many of them mall employees. Other people hid in nearby offices and hallways and escaped in batches, he said.
There were between 60 and 70 hostages and people who were trapped in the mall by the standoff, Zamora said.
“I’m very thankful that everything ended up peacefully,” said the mayor, who negotiated with the hostage-taker to give up his weapons and guaranteed his safety shortly before the crisis ended.
“He was asking if it’s the cemetery or prison and I told him, Archie, you’re safe,” Zamora said.
The gunman shot and wounded a security officer at the V-Mall, part of the Greenhills complex, before he rushed to the second floor and took the hostages, Zamora said. The mall officer was in stable condition at a nearby hospital.
The hostage taker was dismissed after abandoning his job in recent weeks without notifying management, Zamora said.
The suspect later used his cellphone to deliver a message to the guards and the media, expressing his anger over a change in his work hours and accusing some of his superiors of corruption.