A few months after he got into trouble for firing his gun during a Christmas party last year, a trigger-happy rookie policeman shot dead a man in Tondo, Manila, on Tuesday.
Police are now hunting down PO1 Fulgencio Sideco, of the Regional Headquarters Support Group of the National Capital Region Police Office, after he repeatedly fired at and killed on the spot Danilo Serrano, 62, on Tuesday afternoon.
Criminal and administrative charges had earlier been filed against the policeman after he gate-crashed a Christmas party last year in his neighborhood on Simon Street in Tondo.
He then poked his gun at the guests and fired shots into the air.
Sideco had admitted to the media that he was an illegal drugs user.
The confiscation of his service firearm and the ongoing dismissal proceedings against him apparently had not taught the rookie a lesson.
Two bystanders—a pedicab driver and a woman—were also wounded during the shooting spree on Tuesday, according to a report from Manila Police District Homicide section case investigator PO3 Alonzo Layugan.
Serrano was at the corner of Lacson and Romana Streets near his home at around 4:30 p.m. when Sideco showed up and shot him without any warning, police said.
As Serrano lay bleeding on the street, Sideco walked up to victim and continued to fire at him, Layugan said.
Serrano died of multiple gunshot wounds all over his body.
Seven pieces of fired cartridges and a slug of an unknown caliber were recovered from the scene.
Layugan told reporters that Sideco had a longstanding grudge against the victim’s son, and had apparently taken out his anger on the elder Serrano.
Sideco immediately escaped after the incident.