Years in boot camp prepared him for the pressures of battle, but apparently not for trigger-happy streaks with the “bottle.”
A young policeman assigned with the Special Action Force (SAF) allegedly went on a shooting rampage early Thursday in Quezon City, killing a security guard and a taxi driver, the latter he just randomly encountered on the road.
PO1 Joseph Kimayong, 29, was arrested by fellow police officers on patrol who spotted him getting off the taxi where he made his second kill.
Investigators said Kimayong reeked of alcohol when arrested for the killing of Danilo Landasan, a 50-year-old security guard working for AFM Industrial and Watchman Protective Agency; and Angelito Bernabe, a 48-year-old cab driver.
The young policeman, a member of what is considered an elite PNP unit tapped for special operations like counterterrorism and anti-insurgency missions, allegedly shot the two men dead in separate encounters. Both Landasan and Bernabe were shot in the head.
The suspect, who entered the service in 2009, reports to the SAF headquarters in Sta. Rosa, Laguna province. He was in Metro Manila undergoing training in communications and electronics at Camp Crame.
When the arresting officers asked Kimayong what drove him to shoot the two victims, all he could say was “I don’t know what happened,” according to PO2 Jogene Hernandez of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (QCPD-CIDU).
The SAF member later claimed that he had a drinking buddy, whom he did not identify, who was responsible for the shootings.
Hernandez said the first shooting happened around 2 a.m. Thursday, in Cityventure building at the corner of East Avenue and Magalang Street in Barangay Pinyahan.
Two men outside the building told police that they saw Landasan being chased inside Cityventure by a gun-wielding man, who was later identified as Kimayong. They then sought the help of barangay officials when they heard gunfire from the building.
The SAF man emerged from the building and tried to hail a taxi on East Avenue.
“None of the taxis stopped because he was waving his gun at them. He (Kimayong) was apparently picked up by Bernabe in his cab after the suspect concealed his pistol,” Hernandez told the Inquirer.
With Kimayong in his cab, Bernabe made a U-turn on East Avenue but later stopped on the side of the road. Another shot rang out just as a patrol car of the QCPD Kamuning station was passing by.
Two policemen, also rookies, accosted Kimayong as he was getting off the taxi. He surrendered a .45-cal. pistol.
Bernabe was found in the driver’s seat with a bullet wound in the forehead. Hernandez surmised that “the drunken suspect shot the driver when the latter found out he was armed and asked that he get off the cab.”
Landasan, the security guard, was shot twice also in the head.
Kimayong remained in detention Thursday at the QCPD-CIDU holding cell to face charges for two counts of murder, the investigator said.