Phl diplomat mistaken as terror suspect

MANILA, Philippines - A Philippine diplomat was mistaken as a terror suspect armed with an improvised nuclear device after a New York police officer belonging to a counter-terrorist unit picked up radiation signal coming from him.

Elmer Cato, first secretary and consul of the Philippine embassy in Washington, said yesterday he saw a police car at the corner of Caldwell Avenue and 72nd Street and made sure he was not illegally parked.

“I didn’t want the police to pull a fast one when I am gone and issue me a ticket. When I convinced myself that I was properly parked, I turned to cross the street,” Cato said in his Facebook account.

It was then that the police car quickly turned left towards him and stopped.

Cato said the police officer, who was in the driver’s seat, asked him to step closer.

While at the driver’s side, Cato said he saw the officer pointing an unfamiliar device at him and started questioning him.

“‘You just came from somewhere, sir?’ he asked, looking suspiciously at the backpack I was holding,” Cato recalled.

The diplomat told the police officer that he just came from his cardiologist.

Cato recalled that the drivers of cars passing by were looking at him “perhaps wondering why I was standing in front of a police car that was partially blocking the road.”

When asked by the officer if he took something when he saw his cardiologist, Cato said he had some tests.

“One was a stress test. A nuclear stress test,” Cato told the police officer.

“That explains it. You’re radioactive,” Cato recalled the officer saying as the latter showed him a device and again pointed it at him.

Cato presented his diplomatic ID issued by the State Department and handed it to the police officer, who later apologized for the incident.

“Sorry about this, sir, but I’m required to have a record of this. It’s nothing serious,” Cato said the officer told him.

The officer also told Cato that not all NYPD police cars have a radiation device.

“Only few of us have this. I happened to belong to a counter-terrorist unit. I picked up the radiation signal down the road and it got stronger here,” the police officer said.

Cato offered to show his backpack, but the officer said there was no need to see his bag.

“From pastor to a possible terror suspect in a matter of days – I wonder what I would be mistaken for next time,” Cato said.