SWAT member in Laguna dead in gun accident

LUCENA CITY — A member of the elite Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) police team in San Pablo City, Laguna died Thursday, Nov. 24, after a colleague’s gun accidentally fired and hit him.

A spot report from San Pablo police said Police Corporal Fhrank Aldene Dela Cruz, 30, and fellow SWAT members were checking on their firearms at the village hall in Barangay 1-B around 8:30 a.m.

“They were cleaning their guns for inspection [at the time of the incident],” Police Staff Sergeant George Maramag, the case investigator, said in a phone interview.

The report said another cop approached Police Corporal George Mervin Duran, 31, and told him that their service firearms had been switched.

Duran examined his gun, a .9 mm pistol, and removed its magazine.

When Duran was about to check on the gun’s chamber to see if there was still a bullet inside, the report said the firearm went off and hit Dela Cruz in his chest.

Duran, fellow policemen, and village watchmen rushed Dela Cruz to the Community General Hospital of San Pablo, but he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Maramag said Duran was placed under police custody. INQ

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