As Christmas party winds down, Manila cop shoots colleague dead

A member of the Manila Police District was shot dead by one of his fellow policemen during a Christmas party at a bar early Saturday.

Arrested by his colleagues and facing murder charges, P02 Judiex Quinto, 30, remained tightlipped on what drove him to shoot PO1 Anthony Alagde, 32, after hours of merrymaking.

Quinto reports to the MPD’s antinarcotics group while Alagde was a member of the special operations unit, according to homicide investigator PO3 Jupiter Tajonera.

The two policemen were with about 18 other members of “Team Samurai,” a social group that included civilians and other MPD members, who had a Christmas party that started Friday night at Balbon’s Place in Hermosa, Tondo, Manila.

Around 4 a.m. on Saturday, most of them had left and only Quinto, Alagde, two other MPD members and a civilian were still at the bar.

Tajonera said a witness recalled seeing Alagde go to the toilet and then shot by Quinto in the nape with a 9-mm pistol as he was walking back to his seat. The bullet exited through the victim’s right cheek.

The shooter was arrested by the two other policemen. Alagde did not make it alive to the hospital.

Talk was rife in the MPD Saturday linking the incident to a drug case, but Tajonera said this remained unconfirmed.

The suspect and the victim were considered “batchmates” who entered the police force in 2007 and had not figured in any public dispute prior to the shooting. Erika Sauler