COTABATO CITY — Two men armed with pistols were killed in a shootout with a policeman they approached and shot along a highway in Barangay Ayala in Zamboanga City on Tuesday.
Officials of the Zamboanga City Police Office and Brig Gen. Bowenn Joey M. Masauding, director of the Police Regional Office-9, were quoted in Wednesday radio reports as saying that the slain duo possibly aimed to divest Master Sgt. Ryan F. Mariano of his service pistol, but the plot turned haywire and left them dead.
Mr. Masauding said Mr. Mariano, who was wounded in the ensuing gunfight, is a member of an anti-narcotics team under the Zamboanga City Police Station 9.
One of the two men who attacked Mr. Mariano died instantly from multiple bullet wounds while the other was declared dead on arrival by physicians in a hospital where emergency responders brought him for treatment.
Police investigators and local officials are together trying to identify the slain gunmen with the help of military intelligence agents under the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City. — John Felix M. Unson