Drunk cop runs amuck, kills best friend

MANILA, Philippines - A Muntinlupa City policeman reportedly killed his best friend when he went on a drunken rampage with an M-16 rifle at the Park Homes Subdivision in Barangay Tunasan at past midnight yesterday.

According to initial reports, Police Officer 3 Odelton Lalu was drinking with lawyer Geronimo Fernandez along Everglade street, where they both live, when barangay watchmen were summoned to the area over a reported shooting at around 12:50 a.m.

Barangay watchmen found two vehicles riddled with bullets, and the body of Fernandez on the pavement. Responding police officers arrested Lalu, who is assigned to the National Housing Authority community police assistance center (NHA Compac), which has jurisdiction over a government resettlement project at the New Bilibid Prisons reservation.

Inspector Reynaldo Marcella, who heads the NHA Compac, said Lalu remains detained at the Muntinlupa station investigation division jail while charges are being prepared against him.

Rescue workers said the victim was already dead when they arrived at the scene. Crime scene investigators, who recovered a Philippine National Police-issued M-16 rifle at the crime scene, took Fernandez’s body for autopsy and for drug and alcohol tests.

The neighbors of the two men refused to grant interviews, but said Fernandez lives alone in a two-story townhouse.