On 23rd August, at 9am local time, Manilla, Philippines, 16 HK tourists travelling with Hong Thai Travel Agency has been kidnapped. The gunman is an ex-Police that was fired over charges of theft and assault. At 8:45pm, gunman was shot down by Philippines Police. 7 confirm deaths, 2 critical, 6 minor injuries. [youtube]1IJQkM6N8Ns[/youtube] http://www.facebook.com/pages/wei-f...-ai-reng-sheng-huan-de-qi-dao/153381241339694
Really tragic end. Feel so bad for those people... I'm just wondering why they didn't shoot him when they had him standing in the door way of the bus?\ http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100823/video/vhd-manila-bus-siege-ends-in-dramatic-sh-686f718.html [video=youtube;AtFszNQ8SpU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtFszNQ8SpU"[/video]
The way the rescue operation was handled by the goverment and police, it's disappointing. What happened to the negotiations and why did it took so long to get into the bus? They didn't seem to be well disciplined. Tragic event.
Agreed. I think once it was learned that it was only a single assailant, they had plenty of opportunity to engage him. Why they waited will certainly be subject to a lot of finger pointing. Like you stated, handled by both the gov and Police very poorly. In one photo, I noticed that they handed in bags of food; I wonder if they tried to lace the food with sedatives; if not, that too was a major failure. I'm wondering also why some of the passengers didn't try to escape out the back of the bus while his attention was distracted at the front. Those tour bus windows are notoriously easy to open.
it was poorly handled! that Mendoza guy was standing there at the door, wide open!.....it took too long to finish him. he's certainly not thinking logically, not at all. there's no way u can get ur job back by taking hostages, WTH?! u will get punished in the end! just wanna get ur job back so u do sth thing, taking ppl's lives away, fuck that. respect others' lives even if u dont care about urs! 枉你仲係個police officer!!!! sigh.....this is so sad.....
I was watching this play out in the morning and only hear it's over, that's when I went out. And now I find out it didn't end well, that's just a poorly executed plan by the people involved. This is going to be really bad for the image of Philippine.
& the traveling agency is paying 500,000 (i think) to the families for each member that died in this hostage.
it's more like 1million HK dollar and up with other money offers. It's suppose to be 500k from the insurance but they double it. They can't short change these people. Hong Thai and the insurance company that's involve are going to give them as much as they can to look good in the public eye, it's the right thing to do but also good PR.
