MANILA, Philippines—“Ang bilis mo naman, pare (You’re going way too fast, man)!”
Leopoldo de la Cruz, 59, reportedly just shouted this in jest to the two men on a motorcycle who whizzed by him as he stood on the sidewalk on Fabia Street, Tondo, Manila, Friday night last week.
But the riders—who turned out to be a Pasig City police officer and his father—didn’t take it lightly, made a U-turn, and came back to give De la Cruz a severe beating.
Investigators have begun looking for Police Officer 1 Reynold Lopez and his father Rafael after De la Cruz, a Manila City Hall employee, succumbed to his injuries at the hospital Thursday.
Mayor Alfredo Lim, who received a report on the incident from De la Cruz’s granddaughter on Thursday, ordered the filing of appropriate charges against the Lopezes.
The suspects reside on Fabia Street, with the younger Lopez reportedly a member of the motorized anti-street crime unit of the Pasig City police.
According to witnesses’ accounts gathered by the police, father and son mauled De la Cruz around midnight of March 23, with the younger Lopez hitting him with a handgun and smashing his head on a wall.
De la Cruz was rushed to Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center where he lay comatose for about a week before dying due to skull fractures and brain hemorrhage.