Port Area guard killed alleged snatcher for employees’ safety

A security guard who said he “only wanted to shoo away’’ an alleged snatcher ended up killing him in Port Area, Manila, on Thursday morning.

“My emotion got the better of me,” said Jose Acedillo, 44, who now faces murder charges in the city prosecutor’s office for shooting Mark Anthony Polea.

In an interview, Acedillo said he had witnessed how Polea and his cohorts grabbed the cell phones of pedestrians in the area, including an employee of a shipping firm where the guard worked and another from a newspaper company.

Acedillo was on duty when he saw Polea again on Railroad Street near the corner of 20th around 9 a.m. Thursday. In hindsight, the guard said he could not restrain himself from going after the man because he knew “he’s again preying on innocent people (and) just waiting for another opportunity to steal.”

“I just wanted to keep our employees safe,” Acedillo told the Inquirer. Later in the interview, he said Polea and his group also bullied him in their past encounters.

Acedillo maintained he just wanted to hit Polea with the butt of his gun but his finger was already on the trigger that very moment, so he fired at the man twice.

A bystander tried to stop Acedillo and almost allowed Polea to run away, but the guard shot him two more times, according to SPO2 Joseph Kabigting, the case investigator from the Manila Police District’s homicide section.

A member of Vestina Security Services, Acedillo surrendered to his company after the shooting and was later arrested by the MPD.

“I have regrets but it’s too late for that now,” said the guard, who now worries about the future of his children aged 15, 12, 10 and 4.