Rookie cop arrested for toting gun

A rookie policeman was arrested and charged after allegedly toting his gun at a karaoke bar in Quezon City and challenging arresting cops into a fistfight.

Police Officer 1 Clifford Bassig, who is assigned with the Calabarzon PNP, was charged with illegal possession of firearm and direct assault against a person of authority.

Superintendent Reynaldo Magtahas, deputy commander of the Quezon City Police District-Station 11, said Bassig, who is in his 20s, could not present papers for the .9 millimeter pistol that he allegedly brandished while inside the bar at around midnight yesterday.

He said Bassig’s brother, Florentino, was also arrested as he also allegedly got involved in the scuffle. Both the two were drunk when apprehended, Magtahas said. “He (Bassig) pointed his gun at some of the customers inside the bar. When our police tried to apprehend him, he resisted and even challenged them into a fistfight,” Magtahas said in an interview.

According to Magtahas, the police station received a call from an employee of the bar located at the corner of Araneta and E. Rodriguez Avenues where the brothers were having a drinking session.

The employees and customers were threatened after the rookie cop allegedly brandished his gun.

Magtahas also said that Bassig was later found to be the same person that caused past commotions at the same bar. “He had not been arrested because he would immediately leave the place once the employees of the bar call up the police,” Magtahas said. He also said it was not clear whether the gun carried by Bassig was his service firearm since the latter could not present any documents.

Magtahas said Bassig’s residence is in Barangay Imelda and is near the bar where the scuffle happened.

In a related incident, a former policeman was gunned down in front of his house in Sitio Cabuyao, Barangay Sauyo also in Quezon City Monday afternoon. A police report identified the victim as John Hadjalanie, 35, who was formerly assigned with the National Capital Region Police Office.

Superintendent Franklin Moises Mabanag, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit of the Quezon City Police District, said investigators have yet to determine the identity of the suspect who was said to have used an improvised shotgun in killing the victim.

Mabanag said police are looking into the possibility that the killing could be related to Hadjalanie’s former job.

Hagjalanie was sprawled in his own blood at around 5 p.m. after his neighbor Cesar Ballarda heard successive gunshots while he was inside his own house.

The victim sustained multiple gunshot wounds in his neck and left arm.

Neighbors rushed the victim to the Quezon City General Hospital where he expired during treatment.