Navotas SWAT cop kills colleague

A member of the Navotas City police Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team gunned down his fellow police officer reportedly over a petty misunderstanding yesterday morning at the gate of the Navotas Fishport Complex.

Navotas City police chief Senior Superintendent Erick Reyes said Police Officer 2 Roy Iguin, of Moriones, Tondo, and assigned at the SWAT outpost on Road 10 in Barangay North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS), is now the subject of a police manhunt.

Iguin reportedly shot dead PO1 Nelson Gloriani, also a member of the Navotas SWAT team, at the gate of the Fishport Complex at around 9:30 a.m.

Reyes said that Gloriani was already off duty and had just finished eating breakfast at a canteen near their outpost when he was met by Iguin, who was about to report for work.

A security guard manning the Fish Port gate, who requested not to be named, said that he observed the two policemen talking only a few meters away.

“They were just talking but I was only surprised upon hearing at least nine successive gunshots,” the guard told The STAR.

When the guard tried to check, Iguin, who was riding a black motorcycle with an AK-47 rifle slung on his shoulder and a 9-millimeter pistol in one hand, shouted at him.

“Wag kang makialam, di ka kasali rito (Don’t intervene, you’re not involved here),” the guard quoted the suspect, who was in his SWAT uniform, telling him.

Iguin rode his motorcycle towards Manila, leaving the bloodied Gloriani lying on the pavement. He escaped the other SWAT members and Maritime police who gave chase.

Gloriani’s fellow SWAT members, led by PO2 Rodel Ramos, rushed him to the Tondo Medical Center for treatment but he was pronounced dead on arrival due to at least six gunshot wounds in the head and body.

Recovered from the crime scene were spent shells from a 9-millimeter pistol.

SWAT cops at Road 10 said the two police officers were organic members of the team and have been assigned at the same outpost for more than three years.

“Maayos naman silang kasama kaya di namin alam kung ano talaga ang kanilang problema (They are good buddies and we don’t know what really their problem is),” a SWAT member said.

Reyes said he tried to contact Iguin through his mobile phone but the suspect turned it off. He said the killing, which they will investigate more thoroughly, may have “started in a simple teasing” that irritated Iguin.

Reyes described Iguin as a “quiet fellow” while Gloriani was a bit of a “bully.”

“Iguin must surrender and face the problem,” Reyes said.

STAR sources, however, said there was more to the incident than meets the eye. They said the incident was not a case of a plain conversation between friends that went haywire, but refused to elaborate.