Family rescued from hostage taker

Police rescued unharmed a family of seven from the clutches of a drug-crazed man after almost five hours of exhaustive negotiations with the police yesterday in Caloocan City.

Superintendent Dionicio Borromeo, Caloocan City police intelligence and crisis management bureau chief, said that siblings, Romeo Garay Jr., 13, Mark Derrell, 7, John Dave, 2, three female siblings and their mother were saved unscathed from hostage taker Joemar Itong, 24.

Itong, jobless and a native of Bukidnon, was a guest of the children’s father, Romeo Garay Sr. at their house at 68 F. Aguilar street, Barangay 139 in Bagong Barrio.

The victim’s father told the police that at around 10 p.m. last Wednesday, he was talking with the intoxicated suspect at the first floor of their house when the latter suddenly became angry at him for no apparent reason.

According to Borromeo, the suspect accused the older Garay of betraying him by turning him over to his imagined killers.

Garay tried to calm down the suspect, but Itong ran upstairs and went to the room where Garay’s wife and six children, three boys and three girls, were sleeping.

The suspect, allegedly under the influence of drugs, reportedly grabbed a 15-inch bolo placed under Garay’s pillow and threatened to kill Garay’s wife and children.

After almost an hour of talking to the suspect, Garay was able to convince him to release his wife and the girls.

The suspect gave in and Garay immediately called for assistance from the barangay and the police.

But when Borromeo and his men arrived with barangay chairman Nelson Nazareno, the suspect only became angrier. He then turned off the lights on the second floor.

With the lights out police found it difficult to carry out a rescue operation. They also had difficulty in convincing the suspect of releasing the hostages since the suspect demanded nothing and only kept saying that somebody was out to kill him.

At around 2 a.m., after hours of exhaustive negotiations, the suspect told the police that he wanted to talk to his older brother, identified only as Nonoy, who was in Barangay Karuhatan in Valenzuela.

The police immediately fetched the brother. Nonoy was able to come close to his brother and persuaded him to put down the bolo.

At this juncture, the police quickly pounced on the suspect and saved the three boys unharmed.

Charges of illegal detention, child abuse and illegal possession of a deadly weapon were filed yesterday against the suspect with the Caloocan City prosecutor’s office.