CAMP PACIANO RIZAL, Sta. Cruz, Laguna—A Manila policeman was gunned down outside his home in San Pedro, Laguna, on Saturday.
SPO2 Oscar Mariscotes, 41, who was assigned at the Manila Police District, died of multiple gunshot wounds after he was shot several times by one of two men riding in tandem on a motorcycle while walking on a street in St. Joseph Homes, Barangay Langgam, at around 8:30 a.m., said Supt. Kirby Kraft, San Pedro police chief.
Kraft said Mariscotes, who was off-duty, was talking to a neighbor along the road about 50 meters from his home when he was shot.
“Witnesses said that after the gunmen took a U-turn, the passenger at the back of the motorcycle got off and shot Mariscotes at close range,” Kraft said.
Mariscotes sustained two gunshot wounds in the face and one in the back, said Kraft.
Kraft said Mariscotes was clearly a target for assassination but the police have yet to establish the motive behind the killing.
He said Mariscotes’ family and colleagues were also in a quandary as to the motive for the slaying as they said he had no known enemies.
Mariscotes was a police dispatcher who did his job in the MPD office, said Kraft.
Police later recovered a motorcycle without a plate number, which they believed was the one used by the gunmen, in a vacant lot about half a kilometer from the crime site.
“We believe the suspects abandoned the vehicle right after the incident. We are now trying to trace the owner of the motorcycle,” Kraft said.