Philippine television on Friday served up a real-life hostage drama that ended with the suspect stabbing a four year-old boy to death before he was himself killed by police gunfire.
Irate callers flooded the switchboards of radio stations to denounce what they said was police bungling during the pre-dawn drama at a Manila bus depot.
The footage showed an untrained television journalist beseeching the unidentified knife-wielder, who had snatched the young hostage from the lap of his horrified parents.
Afterwards, the suspect was shown repeatedly plunging his blade into the back of the child. The man was later gunned down and bystanders approached and stomped on the prone and bloodied suspect.
Red-faced police officials pledged an inquiry into the fracas. ”We are dismayed by the death of the child,” metropolitan Manila police chief Eduardo Aglipay said over DZBB radio.
He said there would be a thorough investigation, with the police using the television footage as evidence. ”There are so many questions to be answered regarding this hostage situation,” he said.
”If there were lapses in procedure we would act on them,” Aglipay said. ”If anyone committed a mistake, they have to answer for it in terms of administrative punishment.”
National police representative Leonardo Espina said the police should not have allowed the journalist to negotiate. ”We have to have trained negotiators. We cannot just permit anybody who is not trained to negotiate with hostage-takers,” he said over ABS-CBN television.
DZBB said it fielded calls and messages that described the police rescue team as ”morons”.
”Seeing anyone stab a child would lead to a lot of anger, but I think that is after the fact. There is a question here that there is a possibility that less violent means could have been used,” an ABS-CBN anchor said.
”We received a lot of calls this morning (that the suspect) could have been taken out earlier.” ? Sapa-AFP