3 teeners held after rumble in Tondo

Manila police arrested three male teenagers in Tondo yesterday after they fired on a rival youth group while aboard a stolen barangay patrol vehicle, wounding a bystander.

After another episode of youth violence, Tondo police are now preparing carnapping charges against the boys - aged 14 to 16 - for the theft of the tricycle of Barangay 60 Zone 5.

The wounded victim, Manuel Andaya, 29, was still being interviewed by police as of press time. He sustained a gunshot wound in his left leg while he was walking along Dagupan street. Police said the weapon used was a "pen gun."

According to Andaya, the incident happened at 1 a.m. yesterday while he was on his way to the Viron bus terminal in Sampaloc, Manila to catch a trip to Pangasinan.

"It was very sudden. I think they were targeting a group of youths nearby whom they missed and hit me," he told The STAR.

The arrested teeners were reportedly part of a group of eight who had all crammed into the tricycle. They were later turned over to the barangay chairman.

The youngsters (whose names The STAR has withheld), refused to name the others in their group but disclosed that the one who fired the pen gun was a guy who uses Popong as his alias, a 21-year-old man.

Meanwhile, two persons were reported killed in separate incidents in Manila, one in a free-for-all in Tondo, and the other shot by unidentified men in Sta. Cruz.

Killed in the rumble was Sotero Valdez, 32, after being stabbed in the left side of his body inside a bar near Pier 14 of the North Harbor in Tondo.

The fatality in Sta. Cruz remains a puzzle, however, as his name is still undetermined and so was the motive for the killing. Residents along nearby Natividad street said they just heard four successive shots and later found the victim dead. – Jose Aravilla