Hostage-taker jumps from QC justice hall

MANILA, Philippines - A man who stabbed his mother and took his relatives hostage jumped from the fourth floor of the Quezon City justice hall yesterday morning.

Jerry Lo, 22, landed on the roof of the building’s canteen at the ground floor. He survived the fall and still underwent inquest proceedings at the hospital, where the fiscal went to see him.

Lo’s jump caused the roof and wooden beams of the canteen to collapse on Elvira Guerzon, 46, a traffic enforcer for the city government’s department of public order and safety (DPOS).

Damaged spine?

Guerzon was eating in the canteen when Lo jumped. She may have sustained spinal injuries as she could not move her lower extremities following the incident.

“I don’t know what we will do now,” Guerzon’s husband, Danny, said while his wife was being treated at the East Avenue Medical Center (EAMC) emergency room.

Danny said his wife is the only one earning for their family of six at the moment since he recently fell ill himself. He said their four children are still studying.

Dr. Alfonso Nuñez, chief of the EAMC’s emergency and trauma department, said Guerzon is in  stable but guarded condition, adding that x-ray results show that she did not sustain broken bones. However, he said they have to conduct further tests to determine if the incident damaged her spine.

Danny appealed to local officials to help with their medical expenses, noting that the incident happened in the city hall compound.

“She did not do anything. She was just eating,” he said.

DPOS chief Elmo San Diego said Guerzon will definitely receive assistance since she is a permanent employee of the local government. “We are all hoping for her speedy recovery,” he said.

Not agitated

Superintendent Osmundo de Guzman, commander of the Quezon City Police District Station 1, said Lo was sober and did not seem to be agitated while detained at the police station.

But while waiting for the inquest proceedings at the justice hall yesterday, the handcuffed suspect managed to slip past two police escorts at around 10 a.m. The latter grabbed him by the shirt but when his clothing tore off, the suspect managed to jump through the railing at the center of the building.

Lo was “semiconscious” when he was being treated at the EAMC, he added. De Guzman said the suspect will undergo more tests to see if he sustained major injuries.

Lo was transferred to the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center in Manila upon the request of his relatives. A police officer accompanied the suspect when he was transferred.

Still charged

The fiscal went to the hospital to charge Lo with frustrated parricide, frustrated homicide, child abuse, and alarm and scandal.

Lo, then visiting his relatives in Barangay Santa Ana on Monday, stabbed his own mother before holding the entire family hostage.

After his mother was brought to the hospital, he allegedly attacked his male cousin and gripped an infant. The male cousin, a sister and their mother locked themselves inside a room for four hours until policemen arrested the suspect. De Guzman suspected that Lo was high on drugs.