A bonding time for two seaman-brothers turned tragic when they were shot dead on Saturday by a lone gunman inside a café-bar about 500 meters from a police precinct in Barangay Punta Princesa, Cebu City.
Nick Vincent Ong, 25, and his brother, Niel Bryan, 28, died after they were shot in the body and head by a gunman using a 9 mm pistol inside the Sportster Café at F. Llamas St., said Insp. Ian Macatangay, chief of the Punta Princesa Police Precinct.
This was the second shooting in the city in a span of 12 hours. The first shooting happened on Friday in Barangay Banilad, where a man was shot dead by two gunmen on foot at 2 p.m.
Macatangay said that the unidentified shooter was wearing a hood when he killed the brothers at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday.
According to SPO1 Winston Ybañez, Cebu City Police Office homicide section investigator, initial investigation showed that the Ong brothers were spending time together with friends especially since Neil Bryan, had just returned home from a working stint at sea.
Since they lived with their grandmother in the area, they decided to have a drink at the café-bar with their friends.
But according to witnesses, the assailant, who had already been in the cafe-bar ahead of the Ong brothers and was sitting a few tables away from them, approached the younger Ong, Nick Vincent, asked to borrow his lighter and after lighting a cigarette, pulled out a gun and shot Nick Vincent in the forehead.
The shooter then ran outside to escape but the startled elder brother, Nick Bryan, chased him and was shot outside the establishment by the attacker in chest, killing him.
The shooter then got on his motorcycle parked outside and fled the area.
Police officers at the nearby Punta Princesa Police Precinct upon hearing the shots rushed to the café-bar but they failed to catch the shooter who had already fled on his motorbike.
Police recovered 4 empty shells of a 9 mm pistol in the crime scene.
Ybañez said that the shooter’s target was most likely the younger Ong and the elder Ong was probably killed because he chased the shooter.
He said that they were looking at a personal grudge, love triangle or a fraternity-related violence as the motive in the shooting.
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