EDITORIAL – Fatal encounters

The public wants the carjacking scourge to stop, and cops should be commended when they do their job. Like all law enforcement operations, however, the campaign against carjacking must be done the right way. That encounter Monday night between members of the police Traffic Management Group and three suspected carjackers was certainly not the right way.

As video footage replayed on television yesterday showed, the van used by the TMG members was not marked as a police vehicle. The cops were not in uniform. Guns drawn, they approached the suspects’ car. One of the cops shone a flashlight on two men slumped on the front seats. Another cop opened fire, apparently making sure the men were dead.

Police said one of those killed, Anthony Brian Dulay, had a carjacking record and was suspected to be part of a carjacking ring that usually uses a stolen Prado van during operations. Police said the van was found abandoned yesterday in Valle Verde.

Dulay and the two other fatalities, Francis Manzano and Antonio Cu-Unjieng, were allegedly about to steal a car when the TMG chanced upon them in the Ortigas area. Gunfire was exchanged during a car chase; a TMG member was wounded.

Even if the dead might have been part of a carjacking ring, the lapses of the TMG diminish the value of the operation and raise public concern. First, the TMG used an unmarked van in chasing a civilian vehicle. People in this country are suspicious even of police cars; why would anyone stop for an unmarked vehicle? Second, the cops were in mufti. Even if they rolled down their van windows, flashed police badges and screamed that they were cops, who would trust them, when carjackers in some parts of Metro Manila wear police uniforms?

Lastly, cops are required to rush to a hospital anyone wounded in an encounter with the police, once the wounded has been disabled and no longer poses a threat. The video footage clearly shows that the men in the car were already disabled, but the TMG made sure they were dead.

Filipinos tired of lawlessness may be willing to give cops the benefit of the doubt if the dead have just committed a heinous crime or are wanted for a string of serious offenses. But the lapses of the TMG can endanger innocent lives and must not be tolerated.