Some crazy shit just went down in the Phillipines:
2010 Manila hostage crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I’m not sure how people usually go about hostage situations, but they didn’t do shit for the longest time. Seems sloppy and unprofessional, imo.
This part of the wiki really jumped at me.
The hostage taker was identified as Rolando Mendoza (earlier named as “Reynaldo”) by the Philippine National Police (PNP); he was a former high-ranking commissioned police officer.[3] Mendoza demanded to be reinstated with benefits to his previous post at the Manila Police District, from which he had been dismissed for extortion in 2009.[4][5]
The Ombudsman found Mendoza and four others guilty of misconduct for allegedly extorting P20,000 from Christian Kalaw, a chef of the Mandarin Hotel, Manila on April 9, 2008. Administrative charges against Mendoza were filed on April 25, 2008, after which he was relieved as Chief of the Mobile Patrol Unit. In August 2008,** the Manila Prosecutors Office Eighth Division dismissed the case after Kalaw failed to attend the dismissal proceedings**; the PNP Internal Affairs Service recommended the dismissal of the case on October 17, 2008, for the same reason.
Mendoza graduated with a degree in criminology, joined the police force as a patrolman, and rose to become senior inspector. He was decorated 17 times, for bravery and honor. Colleagues at the Manila Police District said he was hard-working and kind.[6] On February 1986, Mendoza led a group of policemen that flagged down a van which turned out to be carrying 13 crates full of money which Ferdinand Marcos was trying to take out of the Philippines. Mendoza and his team turned the shipment over to authorities.[6] That year, Mendoza was awarded as one of the Ten Outstanding Policemen of the Philippines by Jaycees International.[7]
In 2008, hotel chef Christian Kalaw alleged he was accosted by Mendoza and several officers over a parking violation, that they planted sachets of methamphetamine in his car, forced him to take the drug, accused him of being a drug addict, and demanded he empty his automatic teller machine and hand over the money. Kalaw said the policemen released him after a friend raised 20,000 pesos. The Office of the Ombudsman ordered Mendoza dismissed from the service, and the loss of all his benefits. Mendoza’s brother, Gregorio, said that all his brother wanted was a fair hearing by the Ombudsman, who “never even gave him a chance to defend himself; they immediately dismissed him.”
I just saw some youtube news footage and OMG, what kind of breaching job was that? Or handling the entire situation.
situations in South east asia is getting fucked up sooner or later . i see chinese flaming the filipinos in the internet at Yahoo
IIRC Philippines is blacklisted for travel ATM.
Word, it’s all up on the Philippine news that the Chinese are “calling the Filipinos chaotic monkeys”
Yea I asked because I figure this would happened. Wishing it wouldn’t happened, but you know how Asians are… sigh this can’t be good.
Significant filipino population in HK + mild abuse/racism against filipino maids + Manila crisis = NOT GOOD
Cops were stupid for sending in an under-trained and under-equipped SWAT team in (goddamit, at least spend some of the money you extort on proper gear). Cops were also stupid for bowing in to the media, they should have told the fuckers to turn those cameras off when they were going to raid the damn bus (or better yet, when they had to arrest the stupid brother). Seriously, in what other country can the media push the police around for fear of media reprisals.
Media was stupid for covering every single bit even though the knew that the fucker Mendoza had TV and radio in the bus. First damn rule of covering a hostage crisis is to assume that the gunman has access to your reporting.
The only folks I’d pat on the back for this are the two snipers who took the fucker out. Taking that headshot with a 1.5 - 2x zoom sight (wasn’t even a proper scope since they can’t afford them) required balls of steel.
That said, why the fuck did they send in this incompetent SWAT team when we have combat veterans in the military who could have done this better? A Philippine Marine Scout Sniper is trained to hit a target 900 yards away with a 5.56 rifle (where most snipers would use 7.62 or larger). Give a team a .50 M95 Barret (you fuckers do realize the marines have those down south) and this would have ended before merienda and everyone could have gone home for snacks.
EDIT:
Stupid manila cops, THIS is how you do a bus breach.
Really? I see that you live there, and you may be military, but this really isn’t realistic. Are we talking 5.56x45 or some other round that I am unaware of? The max effective range on that round is around 550-600. Even if you compensate for the incredible amount of drop and wind movement, which is huge at that range for that round, you still have a projectile that has lost a lot of its ballistic energy. Why would they choose that anyway? MOA of 5.56 round in most common 5.56 rifles is not good enough that you can extend it past 400 yards and think that you can guarantee a shot. If there are people who can make that shot, then I can’t imagine there are a lot of them.
Also a .50 BMG round is going to go through the bad guy, the back wall of the bus and several feet of whatever (or whoever) is behind the bus. That could end up being messy.
(not attacking you. I would love to be proven wrong. I would learn something new.)
In previous cases police have learned from failure. SWAT teams are trained and equipped a certain way because a situation demanded it of them. It is sad that they could not have learned from one of the other well equipped countries, but hopefully this will open their eyes to the need to improve. A shame that it had to come to this.
God damn, those guys don’t fuck around.
If I had my life ruined but a lying drug addict and a system that fucked me, I wouldn’t go as far as this guy, but I’m not surprised :\
What pisses me off the most was they didn’t commit to the breach. They started to enter the bus then heard gunfire and got themselves stuck in the fatal funnel when the lead guy tried to retreat. And his demands? That’s it?