MANILA, Philippines — The police chief of Valenzuela has described as an “accident” the gunshot from a police officer’s service firearm, which caused the death of a teenager on the autism spectrum on Sunday.
City police chief Col. Ramchrisen Haveria on Tuesday maintained that 18-year-old Edwin Arnigo and Sr. M/Sgt. Christopher Salcedo had a scuffle over the gun during a police raid on an illegal cockfighting game in Barangay Lingunan.
“Our finding is that it was an accident. The police officer did not deny that the gunshot came from him,” Haveria said in Filipino in a dzBB interview.
The police chief insisted Arnigo tried to grab Salcedo’s gun. The claim is a common police narrative when it comes to suspects killed under police custody.
This was disputed by Arnigo’s family, describing the teenager as an athlete with a learning disability who is afraid of law enforcers.
Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation have visited Arnigo’s wake and the site of the deadly police raid in Barangay Lingunan.
Speaking to dzMM on Tuesday, Arnigo’s mother Helen said the police took off her son’s shirt and brought his body to the tupada site “like a chicken.”
Helen said her son’s shirt was taken off because it could be used as evidence.
“Ang dami nilang sinasabi laban sa anak ko na hindi ko matanggap. Binaligtad nila ang anak ko (They made many allegations against my son that I cannot accept. They reversed his story),” Helen said of the police raiding team.
Arnigo died of a gunshot wound that punctured his heart and lungs, Helen added.