EDITORIAL - Public safety first

In the pursuit of crooks, as in warfare, government agents forget rules of engagement as soon as the shooting starts. How do you know if a gun pointed at you is meant to kill or simply to warn? You don’t, so it’s safer to shoot first and ask questions later. That’s the typical attitude among lawmen, especially when someone is fleeing from them and firing guns in the process.

A number of pursuit operations and armed encounters between law enforcers and suspected criminals have turned out to be cases of summary executions. But in the reported encounter that left 16 people dead last month in Parañaque, it appears that there was truly a running gun battle between cops led by members of the Highway Patrol Group and a band of suspected notorious robbers.

The operation left 10 suspects dead, together with a member of the police Special Action Force and four civilians including a father and his daughter. Alfredo de Vera was driving his van with his daughter Lia when they were caught in the crossfire. Witnesses claimed the pursuing cops finished off De Vera, apparently mistaking him for one of the suspects, before seeing the fatally wounded girl and realizing their grievous mistake.

Such mistakes are bound to happen in pursuit operations where suspects are heavily armed, as the dead men appear to have truly been, but such mistakes could be minimized if cops have better training in observing rules of engagement. Among the top considerations should be the safety of civilians, even if it means letting crooks slip away. In this case, it looks like the pursuing cops did the opposite, leaving nothing to chance as long as they got the bad guys. The death of one of the cops might have influenced decision-making as the pursuit was carried out, but that is no excuse for ignoring the safety of civilians.

The only thing good that could come out of this operation is a resolve to make every law enforcer take to heart rules of engagement – if the national police truly has such rules. Number One among those rules is that public safety comes first.