No probe on US sailor

The Western Police Department is not keen in pursuing the case of an American military serviceman who was allegedly stabbed and wounded while on sentry duty at Manila’s South Harbor midnight last Sunday.

This after the victim, Dental Technician 3rd Class David Edward Spencer had refused to cooperate with police investigators regarding the incident. "We cannot force him to cooperate with us. He is the victim and not the suspect in the incident. We cannot investigate if he refuses to cooperate with us," said Superintendent Manolo Martinez, commander of the Ermita Police Station, which has jurisdiction over the Manila Port Area.

Martinez could not say whether Spencer is still confined at the Manila Doctors’ Hospital along United Nations Avenue, saying there is tight security around the serviceman. Martinez added that elements of the US military are also keeping Manila police investigators away from the case. "We were only informed of the incident after the hospital staff called us. We were only told of an American national rushed to the hospital. We were not even told that he was an American sailor," Martinez said.

Earlier, Acting Armed Forces spokesman Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya told reporters that Spencer was standing guard at Pier 13 at about 12:25 a.m. when he was stabbed in the chin and the neck for still unknown reasons by a suspect or suspects.

Spencer and a certain SN1 Crowes were guarding the US landing ship USS Fort McHenry, which participated in the just-concluded joint Balikatan 02-2 large-scale military exercises in Central and Northern Luzon when the incident occurred. – Mike Frialde