‘Cop’s bullet killed Navotas hostage’

A bullet from a responding policeman’s 9mm service pistol, not the hostage-taker’s knife, killed a nine-year-old girl in Navotas the other day, police crime lab officials said yesterday.

Contrary to initial police reports, Senior Inspector Rio Gatacilo of the Northern Police District-Crime Laboratory Office (NPD-CLO) said victim Rachel Valeriano, 11, did not die from multiple stab wounds in her body, but from a lone gunshot wound caused by a 9mm bullet that entered her right temple and exited at the upper back side of her head. The official SOCO report said the victim died of "intracranial (inside the skull) hemorrhage secondary to a gunshot wound on the head."

Crime lab experts found the 10 stab wounds inflicted by the suspect as "non-life-threatening."

Senior Inspector Felimon Porciuncula, Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) medico-legal officer who conducted the autopsy, said the stab wounds inflicted by the suspect were superficial and "non-penetrating."

"Kung hindi nauluhan, maaaring buhay pa ang biktima (If she had not been hit in the head, she would have lived)," Porciuncula told The STAR.

Gatacilo clarified that what happened was not necessarily due to police error or negligence. Porciuncula agreed with the SOCO chief’s observation.

"Based on our examination, the bullets intended for the suspect all hit home, went through and through but, unfortunately, also fatally hit the hostage," Porciuncula said.

He said hostage-taker Bonifacio Francisco, 37, sustained two gunshot wounds in the back and one in each arm. Two of the bullets penetrated his body and hit the young girl’s neck and chest, Porciuncula pointed out.

Francisco also had a stab wound in the right lower back, apparently inflicted by one of the relatives of the girl after the suspect was towed back to shore in a boat, probers said.

Superintendent Billy Beltran, Navotas police chief, earlier said the policeman who fired the shots had a clear view of the victim and the suspect.

PO2 Edgardo de Guzman, who was pursuing the suspect in another boat, pumped several bullets from his handgun when the suspect started stabbing the victim aboard a banca off Barangay San Jose, Navotas.

"It was really unfortunate. But our policeman just did the right thing seeing the suspect is already stabbing the girl," Beltran said. "Still, we will conduct an investigation to determine if there were also some lapses on our part."

Gatacilo said De Guzman, a sharpshooting officer of the Navotas police, had voluntarily submitted himself to the obligatory paraffin test and his firearm, a Beretta 9mm, for ballistics examination at Camp Crame headquarters.

De Guzman, despite killing the hostage-taker, failed to safely rescue the hostage and is now facing charges of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide.

Meanwhile, a relative of the slain girl said he was sure the victim died of bullet wounds.

"She had wounds in the head, one just below her right eye that exited through her nape," Mario Bunson, 48, uncle of the girl told The STAR. "I was the one who picked her up from the banca where she died with the hostage-taker."

Virgilio Valeriano, 44, the victim’s father, said he does not blame the police for the death of his daughter, a grade six pupil, but would like to know what really caused her death.

"If I were in their (police) position, I might have also done the same," he said adding that he do not intend to file charges against De Guzman. – With Pete Laude