Tag: Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza

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Recording of hostage-taker’s last moments, 4 minutes before shooting at hostages, Manila

Rated PG by blog admin

Hostage-taker’s last, live audio interview minutes before he shot hostages, Manila

i know that many people, especially, our Chinese brothers and sisters are still grieving.

Murder committed anywhere should be met with justice. This audio recording may help in that effort. Our condolences to the bereaved. Hopefully, this recording will help in the gathering of evidence to exact accountability.

This is the live audio interview of hostage-taker Rolando Mendoza minutes and seconds before he started shooting and killing the hostages, conducted by RMN (Radio Mo Nationwide, or Your Nationwide Radio), or rather, a news report of another agency with embedded RMN recording. I authenticated this by comparing it with the transcript of the interview of hostage-taker Rolando Mendoza by RMN, which it submitted  to the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP, Broadcasters’ Guild of the Philippines) this week, as published in newspapers today. They’re the same (the transcript as submitted to KBP and this audio recording) except that the radio interview doesn’t contain the “Erwin” lines or dialog. The audio interview however is infinitely “more alive” or vivid than the transcript and should be listened to; and (just my opinion) should have been submitted together with the transcript. The transcript doesn’t capture at all the agitation, blind rage, uncontrollability, volatility, and desperation, of the hostage-taker. This occurs at running time 4:20 of the upload. You’ll have to listen to this to be able to see, in your mind, what happened inside the bus that Monday evening. You could almost feel the blood rushing to the hostage-taker’s head from this audio recording. (uploaded by myjirr in YouTube, posted here non-commercially, as part of the review above, and for academic purposes)


breaking news, Criminal law, media law, News, The News Media

Hostage-taking in Manila

Hostage-taking in Manila

i know the police know the protocol in hostage-taking situations. This protocol- playbook is uniform and internationally practised/ recognized; and so, i never Monday- quarterback hostage-taking situations. (when the hostage-taker started shooting inside the bus, the breach, by protocol, was necessary; on the other hand, the daytime early negotiations done by the book, resulting in the release of more than half-a-dozen hostages, to the credit of the local officials, went well; this however leaves us with the 7:20pm spectacle, which resulted in disaster, leaving eight hostages dead). Since the 7:20pm fiasco involved media facilities, maybe i’m allowed to Monday- quarterback that.

The police did not manage the hostage-taker’s access to media facilities; nor to who else was communicating with him from the outside. At worst, the police did not know the hostage-taker had access to television and what kind of media/ communication facilities the bus had.

Because of the mismanagement of the hostage-taker’s access to media facilities and various communication lines and to the media, the hostage-taker viewed the spectacle of his brother, and young nephews and nieces, on the floor, being roughed up by the police in television news blow-by-blow; was enraged, and started shooting. The usual practice is that individuals who are allowed to talk to the hostage-taker are also secured, and their media-interviews, managed. These went south today.

i will not Monday- quarterback the warrantless arrest of the brother even if that involved legal issues because this was a hostage-taking situation maybe he had to be restrained because earlier he reportedly further inflamed his brother- hostage-taker when he allegedly told his brother- hostage-taker “don’t give up until they return my gun to me”; the situation became more volatile when the grappling and scuffle occurred, because the hostage-taker could see it in full, living color on TV. (for that matter, the so-called “arrest” was such a show of bruteness it shouldn’t have been done in such manner but i’m trying not to second-guess that at this time because the hostages’ lives were on the line).

Even with the tried-and-tested hostage-taking protocol-playbook, the police might have missed out on something. Teeny-weeny. The terrain. The terrain is not just Quirino grandstand. It’s the bus. They didn’t research it; what facilities it had inside and outside.They also didn’t manage who else and how many were talking to him from the outside. (okay, i limited myself to media facilities; this incident has a whole a lot of legal and ethical issues — maybe another day.)