Police ready charges against wounded Carbon hostage taker

CEBU CITY, Philippies — Police are readying several cases against a 24-year-old man, who was shot and wounded after holding hostage two women vegetable vendors in the Carbon Public Market on early Sunday morning, Sept. 5, in Cebu City.

Police Corporal Joseph Bejer, desk officer of the Carbon Police Station, told CDN Digital that charges of grave threats, alarm and scandal, disobeying a lawful order, and illegal possession of a bladed weapon were being readied against Edsan Rafols.

Rafols of Villagonzalo 2 in Barangay Tejero, Cebu City was neutralized by a member of the Special Weapons and Tactics team of the Cebu City Police Office when negotiations failed and the former tried to stab his hostages with a 13-inch knife.

Bejer said that Police Senior Master Sergeant Juliver Soque of the SWAT was forced to shoot Rafols on the shoulder after he tried to stab his hostages when efforts to calm Rafols down and convince him to surrender failed.

Bejer said that they were still investigating why Rafols held hostage the two women, who were sleeping in their vegetable stall in the public market.

He said that Rafols and the two women did not know each other.

Initial investigation showed that the incident happened at past 2 a.m. of Sunday, Sept. 5. Rafols arrived at the Carbon Public Market and entered the stall of the two women vegetable vendors, who were then sleeping on a bamboo bench.

He then woke them up and held them hostage threatening them with a 13-inch knife.

Police then responded to the alarm and negotiated with Rafols who was then very agitated.

Police Senior Master Sergeant Soque and the SWAT team then arrived and asked Rafols to calm down and surrender to them.

But after a while Rafols allegedly continued to become more agitated and told everybody that he would stab the hostages if someone would come near them.

He then attempted to stab one of the hostages prompting Soque to shoot Rafols on the shoulder, causing Rafols to fall down and lost his hold of the knife.

Rafols was then rushed to the hospital for treatment where he was later admitted.

Bejer also said that the victims, the two women vendors, had not yet visited the police station since the incident to file any complaints against Rafols.

Despite this, Bejer said that they (police) were readying charges against Rafols even without the victims’ complaint.

RELATED STORY

Brief hostage-taking in Catmon goes awry