Two Quezon City policemen in civilian clothes traded shots on Sunday night after they mistook each other for a criminal.
The mistaken encounter that took place on Domingo Street in Barangay (village) Holy Spirit left Senior Police Officer 1 Byron Antonio wounded.
The 50-year-old veteran policeman is assigned to the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) District Police Intelligence and Operations Unit.
The man he figured in a shootout with was identified as Police Officer 1 Dave Carlo Santos, a member of the QCPD Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit.
“It was a misencounter as each of them initially thought the other seemed suspicious,” Chief Inspector Rodelio Marcelo of the QCPD Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit said.
Marcelo added that the two policemen did not know each other although they lived in the same barangay and were both QCPD members.
“It [also] did not help that they were [both] edgy since the area is notorious for its criminal elements,” Marcelo said.
Antonio told investigators that he was supposed to meet an informant in the area when he saw a van, which later turned out to be a SWAT vehicle.
He said that a man then shot him and that he ran away and hid in one of the houses in the area.
Santos, meanwhile, said that he called for backup from other SWAT members after he saw a suspicious-looking man carrying a firearm in the area.
When the SWAT van arrived with five members on board, Santos said he decided to approach the armed man.
He claimed that it was Antonio who fired at him first, forcing him to retaliate.
Fortunately, duty officer Superintendent Ferdinand Villanueva arrived in the area and pacified the two men after he learned that they were both policemen.
Marcelo said they were looking into any administrative lapses that might have been committed by the two men.