Mercado: Just Finishing Touches; ‘Pangarap’, Best for GMA

NOT overkill? Local police officers, out to extricate themselves from a case of overkill, has overstretched public credulity. An unnamed policeman in civilian clothes was caught by an alert TV team while pumping bullets into three fatally injured robbery suspects lying flat and immobile in the street. Families of the slain victims described the cold-blooded and methodical firing of the suspects who were apparently still alive though gravely wounded.

At first it was the police chief of San Fernando who attempted an explanation. It was a clumsy and feckless try at a cover-up. PNP officials should have let the issue die a natural death. Last week, the Central Luzon police director appeared on TV and told his own tacky version of the incident. Whatever he said failed to convince me. I saw the film footage in which the faceless policeman shot the bodies with one bullet each. The reason was the robbers were still breathing and could possibly fire back.

There was no overkill in the sense the dying men still posed a threat when pumped with extra slugs, according to the muddled logic of the explainers. It was clear and evident that the extra firing was the finishing touch to a job well done. Dead men tell no tales. (more)