Question Was The Head Shot First Or Last Bullet

[UZI]

Reports say that other than the hostage taker, the ONLY shots fired were from the police snipers.BTW, Jackie Chan is quoted as saying to his HK fans:

“If they killed the guy sooner, they will say why not negotiate first? If they negotiate first, they ask why not kill the guy sooner? So sad,” he said.

But what does he know of course.

Oh, it seems you might need to replace "fans" with .... what "fans"?

Well done. Ignore the point of the reply & become a sniper yourself oh oh ya got me good with that one. Some 'fans' don't agree with his views. (44 to be exact Facebook group )Ignore ALL the quotes that say that using a sniper isn't allowed if hostages are not in immediate danger (they were not) Ignore that the Sniper manual acknowledges that they can & do miss resulting in hostage deaths (see video I posted on the main thread). Which POV are you on now, should have used a sniper or useless snipers killed the hostages?Note to clarify, I believe the correct approach was employed UP TO the time the brother was arrested. The popular argument that he should have been taken out earlier with a 'head shot' IMHO was at no point justified given that the guy was a trained & decorated PNP officer not a civilian. Even a grab for his weapon if fumbled would have lead to dire consiquences & a total breakdown of calm negotiations.Even the FBI acknowledge that negotiations are the correct way in most cases:

In fact, most barricades and hostage situations in the U.S. are resolved through negotiations or a combination of negotiation and tactical force. Less than one in five incidents are resolved strictly through tactical means, Flood said. Indeed, the unit’s Latin motto is “Pax per Conloquium,” which means “resolution through dialogue.” FBI Negotiations

The handling of the brother, the arrest, the bus siege are where it all went so wrong. So many people are at fault from 5/6 pm it would be a long list indeed. The Brother & the Press would be top with PNP lack of control & planning very close behind. The negotiator though should be commended for the successful release of the hostages prior to 5pm. Those responsible for the rest (and ongoing mess) should be identified & held accountable.Happy to debate even if I am the lone voice doing so (seems that way or are others afraid to voice their agreement) but lets keep it civil. Attack the post if you wish, I have no issue with that.Uzi.

[Jake]

I am very curious how he was able to have in his possession an M-16 Armalite andpossibly a side arm. One would assume that upon dismissal from any police force, your badge, weapons and uniforms must be surrendered. Hopefully, that angle is included in their investigation and more heads will roll. Itwould not surprise me how many rogue cops or military personnel are walkingaround like their chit don't stink. In the Philippines, it's call a "culture of impunity".Jake

[UZI]

This from the BBC. I wonder if this unit had been sent in AFTER negotiations broke down, instead of the ill prepared & equipped SWAT, whether we would now be applauding all concerned. Guess that, we will never know.

Manila bus siege police ignored elite army unit's offer An attempt to storm the bus failed shortly before the gunman was shot Police handling the armed siege of a tour bus in Manila on Monday made no use of an offer of help from a military squad trained in hostage negotiations. The Philippine capital's police chief told a Senate inquiry he believed his officers could handle the situation. Eight tourists from Hong Kong were killed on board the bus after it was hijacked by a former policeman. President Benigno Aquino has promised that "someone will pay" for the "many failures" in the operation. The police action has been officially criticised in Hong Kong, where a three minute silence was held on Thursday for the victims. Philippine Army spokesman Brig Gen Jose Mabanta told the Senate enquiry that a specialist squad had been available and ready to help police, after the bus with 15 tourists on board was hijacked by an armed former police officer demanding his job back. The team was "highly-trained, highly-equipped" and had experience in hostage situations involving Abu Sayyaf Islamist militants in the southern Philippines, he said. The offer of help was accepted by the police but the soldiers were never used, he added. But Brig Gen Mabanta could not say for certain that the outcome would have been different had the police handed over control to the army. Manila Police's Chief Superintendent, Rodolfo Magtibay, meanwhile told the enquiry he had "honestly believed" that his force's Special Weapons and Tactics (Swat) team was sufficiently able to deal with the situation. 'Many failures' In his strongest statement yet on the siege, President Aquino said on Thursday: "Someone failed. Someone will pay." People gathered on Hong Kong's waterfront to honour the eight killed in the hijack He said there had been "many failures" in the operation but that it would be "unfair to pre-judge" the officers involved, according to the Associated Press. Monday's siege ended when police marksmen shot and killed the hostage-taker, former Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza. Survivors and experts have criticised the police for being indecisive and slow in their handling of the crisis. In the last hour of the siege, which was being broadcast live on television, police failed in an attempt to board the bus. In Hong Kong, a sombre mourning service was held on Thursday as the bodies of the eight victims returned home. Both city officials and the authorities in China have demanded a full enquiry into what went wrong. Democratic Party legislator Emily Lau expressed disgust at the actions and said the people of Hong Kong people had lost confidence in the authorities in the Philippines to handle the crisis and its aftermath. She said that if a better trained military team had been available then they should have used it, but that the decision was too late now.BBC News

Edited August 27, 2010 by UZI

[Jake]

The quote below was taken from Jeannette Andrade of Philippine Daily Inquirer, Aug 27, 2010“When the Mayor ordered SPO2 Mendoza to be handcuffed, there was no available pair so we had to sit him down at a corner for several minutes as we (Lim and MPD officials) discussed something at another corner,” Yebra explained. He said that when the handcuffs arrived after their discussion, the Mayor no longer ordered SPO2 Mendoza to be handcuffed and instead instructed them to bring the uncooperative traffic policeman to police headquarters for investigation".Talk about being ill-equipped, ill trained and ill prepared. Damn, it's making me sick....... Jake

[Mr Lee]

I am going a little off topic here but this news story just came up Fatal bullets came from Mendoza's M-16 so it would seem that either Mendoza killed all the hostages or there is always the possibility of a cover up. If it is true that the hostages were killed by Mendoza, then it is certain that the police should have taken the shot when they had a chance. Initial investigation findings indicate that none of the hostages during Monday’s bloody hostage-taking were killed by “friendly fire,” or bullets from the guns of the police assault team, police officials said Thursday. The 59 spent shells recovered from inside the bus all came from the M-16 automatic rifle of the hostage-taker, dismissed Senior Insp. Rolando Mendoza, said Senior Supt. Agrimero Cruz, spokesperson of the Philippine National Police. Cruz said police investigators found only one spent case from a 9mm pistol, which was the service firearm of one of members of the police team that assaulted the bus that was held hostage by Mendoza for 11 hours. “According to witness accounts and according to the statements of the SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) personnel, the members of the SWAT team fired just one shot in the direction of Mendoza. The fragment of that bullet was recovered from the ceiling of the bus,” Cruz said. He said that from the initial reports of the investigation, all gunshot wounds sustained by the eight Hong Kong tourists who were killed came from Mendoza’s firearm, either an M-16 rifle or a .45 cal. pistol. Asked if Mendoza’s eight bullet wounds had come from the SWAT team, either from the assault team or the sniper units positioned outside the bus, Cruz said “we can say that with a certain degree of certainty.” But investigators would still have to wait for the results of bullet trajectory and ballistics examinations to be able to say that with finality, he said.

[UZI]

Apparently, another message was left on the bus window - for us?