Police couple wounded in shootout with motorcycle-riding men in Manila

MANILA, Philippines—A couple, both police officers assigned with the Northern Police District (NPD), was wounded late Saturday afternoon after they were fired at with a submachine gun and a pistol by two of three motorcycle-riding men in Manila.

Couple Senior Police Officera 1 Jerome Jalla, of the NPD District Police Security Battalion, and Julie Jalla, of the NPD District Police Community Relations, had found suspicious and accosted three men aboard an XRM motorcycle, which had suddenly stopped in front of their Honda VTEC car caught in slow-moving traffic at around 2 p.m. Saturday at the corner of Pampanga and M. Natividad streets in Sta.. Cruz.

Manila Police District (MPD) Sta. Cruz station 3 commander Superintendent James Afalla told the Inquirer that the Jalla couple sensed hesitation on the motorcycle riders to pass through a police checkpoint set up by his station several meters from where they were and decided to investigate.

But as soon as SPO1 Jerome Jalla alighted from the car he was driving and introduced himself as a policeman to the trio aboard the motorcycle, two of the riders pulled out an Uzi submachine gun and a pistol and started firing at the policeman.

Under fire, the policeman quickly got inside his car to get his handgun while his wife ducked for cover, grabbing her service pistol.

The gunmen strafed the car with the submachine gun, hitting the couple. The policeman sustained a bullet wound in the right forearm while his wife was hit in the left forearm.  Though wounded, the couple was able to fire back.

Their retaliation prompted two of the men to speed away aboard the motorcycle while the third suspect fled on foot.

Alarmed operatives of the MPD Station 3, manning the nearby checkpoint, pursuee the fleeing suspects but failed to catch up. The wounded policeman managed to drive himself and his wife to the Chinese General Hospital for treatment.

Afalla said, “They (Jalla couple) were both off duty and chanced upon the suspects who surprised them with a submachine gun.”

“They found the men’s actions suspicious and did their job as police officers,” he added.