1,864,921 views Dec 14, 2023 #Hostage #CNAInsider #Philippines
After he is fired from his job, former security guard Alchie Paray shoots a colleague and holds 55 people hostage at a shopping mall in San Juan City, Metro Manila. Renowned police negotiator Gen. Orlando Yebra, scarred by a past crisis gone tragically wrong, races against time to prevent another catastrophe. A decade earlier, he grappled with a disgruntled policeman holding a tourist bus hostage.
That incident ended in the deaths of eight tourists and the hostage taker. As tensions escalate, Paray’s demands take increasingly eccentric twists and a dangerous paranoia grips him as he becomes aware of police movements outside. San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora steps into the fray to attempt to soothe the volatile situation and then things take a shocking turn.
Philippine officials said Tuesday they allowed an armed man who took dozens of people hostage in a mall to hold a news conference to encourage him to free his captives and give police a chance to grab him as he talked with a throng of journalists.
Reporters said they were unaware that the hostage taker, a recently dismissed security guard at the mall who was identified by police as Alchie Paray, had a pistol with him when he faced the media as the crisis came to an end Monday night. But Manila’s police chief, Maj. Gen. Debold Sinas, said snipers were under orders to shoot Paray in the head if he drew his gun or made any hostile act while speaking to journalists.
The 10-hour hostage crisis ended peacefully when Paray walked out of the V-Mall in Manila’s upscale Greenhills district and freed his captives. Afterward, he faced TV cameras and journalists for several minutes and angrily voiced his grievances against his former superiors before police swarmed in and subdued him.
Criminal complaints will be filed against Paray, including illegal detention and attempted murder for shooting and wounding a mall security officer at the start of the crisis, officials said. The victim was recovering in a hospital.
During a news conference Tuesday, journalists said they were unaware that Paray still had a pistol concealed on his waist when police allowed him to talk to the media the night before. Sinas suggested it was deliberate.
