ILOILO City – A rookie officer was hit by a bullet at a regional unit office in Janiuay, Iloilo, in what the police called an accidental firing.
Police Officer 1 Kimberly Hope Bendita sustained a gunshot wound on the waist.
Bendita, a 32-year-old resident of Barangay Jereos, La Paz district, was taken to the Federico Roman Tirador Sr. Memorial District Hospital in Barangay Jibolo, Janiuay.
The bullet came from the service firearm of a fellow rookie officer, Police Officer 1 John Rey Oquila.
Oquila, a 29-year-old resident of Barangay Tinampaan, Cadiz City, Negros Occidental, had been disarmed and “restricted” at the Janiuay police station.
He was lying on a hammock at the Regional Mobile Force Battalion 6 compound in Barangay Jibolo, Janiuay at around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday when the incident happened.
Oquila was checking his newly issued M16 when it went off, initial investigation by Chief Inspector John Paul Guay, Janiuay police chief, showed.
He removed the magazine but did not know that a bullet was still lodged on the firearm’s chamber.
Oquila squeezed the trigger and thereby discharged the bullet, which hit the ground but ricocheted and hit Bendita, Guay said.
Oquila faces negligence and frustrated homicide charges (administrative and criminal, respectively)./PN
