Road rage shooting: Bright lights, dim clues

A FATHER who saw his daughter take a bullet from a hot-headed motorist they randomly encountered on a Quezon City street has posted these video grabs and a street map as part of his online quest for justice. The shooter, he said, fled in the white SUV.

Suspect: Male driver of a white Hyundai SUV, license plate number unknown; keeps a .40-caliber pistol and apparently familiar with shortcuts in Project 7, Quezon City; “mayabang” (arrogant).

An indignant parent and the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) have given these descriptions for the public to help them track down a gun-wielding motorist who, in a fit of road rage, fired at another vehicle and wounded a 9-year-old girl Friday last week.

The child’s father has since issued an appeal via Facebook, narrating his encounter with the unidentified shooter in the early morning of Dec. 6. Shared by over 36,000 users as of Wednesday, the post also provided video grabs of the suspect’s vehicle and a street map showing where the shooting happened.

The father, who asked not to be named after a friend helped him bring the case out in the social media, further detailed the incident in an Inquirer Radio interview on Wednesday.

Around 4 a.m. on M.H. Del Pilar Street in Bungad Village, Project 7, he and his wife were on their way to drop off their two children at school for their field trip.

“The street was very narrow. We came across this white Hyundai SUV with its very bright headlights practically blinding me. As our vehicles passed by each other, I rolled my window down and he (the other driver) rolled down his,” he recalled. “And then I asked him politely: Could you please dim your headlights.”

But the driver shot back: “Eh ano ngayon? (So what?),” he said.

The father said he first managed to keep his cool but later blurted out: “Brod, ang yabang mo naman (You are so arrogant).” The driver of the SUV replied: “Ang yabang mo rin (So are you).”

As he drove on, he tried to look at the side-view mirror to get the SUV’s plate number.

“Then we heard gunshots. My wife panicked and told me to drive off, fearing there would be more. My youngest daughter shouted ‘Aray!’ then our eldest told us that her sister was bleeding,” he said.

They brought the wounded child to the nearest hospital, where doctors found that she was hit in the liver and kidney and would require blood transfusion and surgery.

“She’s recovering now. She can now eat,” he told the Inquirer in a separate interview, adding that his daughter was also wounded in the thigh.

The father renewed his appeal for the public to help find the gunman and send him information that could lead to his arrest at 0928-113-1893. “We’ve already filed complaints. We’ve yet to get updates from the QCPD,” he said.

Investigators are looking into the possibility that the suspect is a resident of one of the subdivisions near the site of the incident.

“That street is not a major thoroughfare and is usually just a shortcut for motorists familiar with the area, mostly residents,” according to Supt. Pedro Sanchez, commander of the QCPD-Masambong station.

The officer said three bullet slugs and a casing, all from a .40-caliber pistol, were recovered at the site and sent to the crime laboratory in Camp Crame to be matched with others retrieved from previous shootings.

“We have already reviewed some security videos but none of them clearly showed the license plate of the SUV or the driver,” Sanchez said. The search for helpful video clips continues, he stressed.

“The bright headlights (the father complained about) blurred the license plates in the videos,” Sanchez noted. “He is the only one who can identify the shooter and driver of that white SUV.”  With a report from INQUIRER.net