Cop tagged in shooting claims hearing a ‘second gunshot’

The Manila police officer implicated in the shooting of 13-year-old Aldrinne Pineda in a slaughterhouse in Tondo in March is now claiming there was a second gunshot that night, in a third bid to cast doubt that it was he who killed the boy.

In an affidavit submitted to Assistant City Prosecutor Aquil Ismael, PO2 Omar Malinao of the Raxabago station said he was running after a group of looters on the night of March 2 in the Vitas slaughterhouse when he was suddenly pelted with rocks.

When he ducked for cover, he “heard a gunshot,” which prompted him to draw his Glock 9-mm pistol.

That was when he tripped and misfired at a “pile of soil debris,” maintaining that the bullet could not have possibly hit Pineda who was then sitting with his friends at the slaughterhouse entrance.

Changing narrative

But the two boys—10-year-old Kenneth and 13-year-old Nano—who were with Pineda that night told the Inquirer earlier that they heard only one gunshot before they heard Pineda say, “I’m hit.”

The boy died the next day after sustaining a gunshot wound in the stomach, but not before telling his father it was a policeman who killed him.

This is not the first time Malinao changed his narrative on Pineda’s death.

When he turned himself over to the Manila Police District on March 5, he told investigators two tales: first, that he only fired a warning shot against the looters, and second,  that he simply tripped and pulled the trigger on his pistol.