‘Addict’ stabs Swat officer in standoff

Sunday, November 13, 2011

A SUSPECTED drug user burned his room, stabbed a police officer and started a standoff with authorities inside the Sun Valley Subdivision, Barangay Calamba, Cebu City yesterday afternoon.

The four-hour-long drama ended with 33-year-old Mario stabbing himself in the chest with a knife that minutes earlier he had used to threaten his relatives.

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Sun.Star Cebu is withholding the names of the family members to protect their identities.

It all began past noon when a plan to send Mario to a rehabilitation center in the southern town of Argao failed. It would have been his eighth stint at the center.

Help sought

His grandmother Lily, 76, sought help when Mario refused to go.

Armed policemen surrounded the house, waiting for him to go out.

However, Mario noticed their presence, which angered him even more. He went to his room in the basement and burned his bed.

His grandfather Romeo immediately doused the flames with a pail of water.

Two fire trucks later arrived when residents called for help. The fire was already under control.

A fire officer went to Mario’s room and found foil believed to be used in taking drugs.

Mario allegedly grabbed a knife and a screwdriver and told his grandparents he would kill himself. He ran outside with the police hot on his heels.

One officer fired a warning shot. Then the standoff started.

Twenty more policemen were deployed in the area, said Chief Insp. Arnel Banzon, head of Special Weapons and Tactics (Swat).

Curious onlookers tried to catch a glimpse of Mario, who was poking the knife and screwdriver on his chest.

He was at the back of his grandparents’ house in a small alley.

Punta Princesa Police Station Chief Aileen Recla arrived to talk to him. She and Mario know each other. Recla was able to pacify Mario.

She urged him to surrender and hand over the knife and screwdriver.

Mario refused.

“Di lage ko kay inyo kung i-rehab. Di ko ganahan didto. Kulatahon ko nila (I don’t want to go to rehab. They will beat me up there),” he said.

A crying Mario told a policeman nearby: “Di mo kasabot sa akong feeling. Maayo pa nga mamatay nalang ko (You don’t understand me. I’d rather die.)

To calm his nerves, Mario asked for a cigarette. The second time he asked for one, Swat member Rodel Dimaangay got hold of Mario’s arm but he was overpowered by the latter.

Mario stabbed him once. Dimaangay was rushed to the hospital

Possible charges

When his grandfather Romeo told him that a stint at the rehab center was for his own good, Mario stabbed himself with the knife.

He was taken to the Chong Hua Hospital, where he was declared safe.

Mario may face complaints of frustrated homicide, alarm scandal and arson.

His grandmother Lily said Mario learned to use drugs from his peers.

“He used to be such a good boy. He changed when he started hanging out with the wrong crowd,” she said in Cebuano.

Lily told Sun.Star Cebu that Mario would go wild when they would not give him money.

“He’d be asking for almost a P1,000 a day,” she said in Cebuano.

Mario has two younger siblings. Their parents separated while they were young.

His father lives in the US with his youngest brother, while his mother is in Australia and married to an Australian national.

Mario and his other brother live with their grandparents.