Philstar.com
September 7, 2017 | 5:21am
MANILA, Philippines — National Capital Region Police Office chief Oscar Albayalde said there might be an overkill on the part of responding cops after forensic findings showed that the five gunshot wounds sustained by 19-year-old Carl Angelo Arnaiz indicated an intent to kill.
"Yes, it's because you know the forensics said that there were five shots. We're looking here of overkill," Albayalde said Thursday in an interview with ANC.
Dr. Erwin Erfe, chief of forensics of the Public Attorney's Office, said their findings showed signs that there was an intention to kill Arnaiz as four of the five gunshot wounds were on the chest where vital organs could be hit. The fifth gunshot wound was located on the back portion of the victim's upper arm.
Autopsy by the Northern Police District, which has jurisdiction over Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela, also indicated that Arnaiz was
lying down when he was shot. Police autopsy was also consistent with PAO's forensic report that Arnaiz showed signs of torture and that he was
unable to fight back.
Arnaiz's death happened two days after Kian delos Santos, 17, was
killed also by Caloocan City cops on August 16 allegedly for resisting arrest during an anti-drugs operation.
The death of the two boys along with the recent
resurfacing of the body of Reynaldo de Guzman, the 14-year-old who accompanied Arnaiz on August 17 to buy midnight snacks in their Cainta, Rizal neighborhood, stirred escalating dissent against the mounting deaths under the Duterte administration.
Parallelisms were also raised on the death of Delos Santos and Arnaiz as both cases showed stark contrasts between police accounts and forensic evidence.
Under the PNP Operations Manual, the use of firearms is justified if the offender "poses imminent danger of causing death or injury to the police officer or other persons." Firearms can also be used under the doctrines of self-defense, defense of a relative and defense of a stranger.
The manual, however, highlights that to resort to self-defense, there must be a real threat to life and the peril sought to be avoided must be actual, imminent and real.
Northern Police District director Roberto Fajardo, who was relieved to give way to impartial probes by the Internal Affairs Service and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, on the same hearing on Tuesday said he stands by the report of his subordinates and that he would just wait for the court's decision on the matter. — Mikas Matsuzawa
