SHOOTOUT ERUPTS AS RSAU COPS RAID TAGUIG POLICE STATION

Taguig police station was turned into a war zone when a platoon of rookie
policemen from the Regional Special Action Unit (RSAU) raided the station's
drug enforcement unit shortly after midnight yesterday to rescue two of
their colleagues arrested earlier for bribery.

The fierce shootout, which lasted for about 30 minutes, took place within
the Taguig Municipal Hall quadrangle in Barangay Tuktukan around 12:10 a.m.

Prior to the shootout, members of the Taguig DEU, now called Anti- Illegal
Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AIDSOFT), had arrested Kahar Goldy,
27, and Benjamin Usmar, 49, both Moslems, in a buy-bust operation in Bahay
Pagkakaisa in Maharlika Village for selling illegal drugs and possessing a
firearm.

When AIDSOFT operatives jailed the suspects, an RSAU policeman, PO1
Ladislao Nuguid, and a civilian employee of RSAU, Nazzer Mohammed, followed
the suspects to the police station to facilitate their early release.

The AIDSOFT policemen said they were offered P18,000 by Nuguid and
Mohammed, prompting the AIDSOFT operatives to arrest the two accomplices
for bribery.

After the failed attempt to bribe the Taguig policemen and upon learning
the arrest of their colleagues, RSAU members led by a certain Chief Insp.
Datu, team leader, based in National Capital Region Police Office at Camp
Ricardo Papa, Bicutan, Taguig, hatched a plan to rescue their colleagues
from the police station.

Around 12:10 a.m., 30 heavily armed RSAU members led by Datu raided the
police station.

According to Insp. Ricardo Luciano of the office of the Taguig chief of
police, their attackers fired their Armalite rifles without any warning,
damaging the walls of the two-story police station building.

Luciano said 10 of the Taguig policemen who were on duty at the time held
their ground even with limited firepower.

"Our policemen used only two Armalite rifles and .9mm pistols," Luciano said.

Although no one was killed or hurt in the shootout, the newly- constructed
Taguig municipal hall was also damaged.

"We will definitely file the necessary charges against these policemen
which will be done through the regular filing of cases before the courts,"
Luciano said.

The clash was stopped after Southern Police District Director Prospero
Noble arrived 30 minutes later with his own backup to pacify the warring
policemen.

But Noble failed to disarm the RSAU policemen and even allowed the
aggressors to return to their barracks with their firearms.