A man was arrested in Manila’s Port Area after he was allegedly caught on camera shooting a noodle vendor in the neck during a robbery.
Suspect Alexander Ogdamina, 36, was arrested at about 7:10pm inside Baseco Compound by the police for allegedly shooting vendor Samson Bautista in the neck, the Manila Bulletin reports.
Bautista was on his way home from work with a relative when he was accosted by Ogdamina on Tuesday night right in front of his house. CCTV footage showed the suspect trying to grab Bautista’s bag, which contained the vendor’s earnings for the day, but the victim refused.
The vendor’s unnamed relative who witnessed the crime told ABS-CBN News, “He was trying to get his sling bag. My brother said, ‘Please no, this is not mine.’ My brother was crying.”
Ogdamina then allegedly shot Bautista, stole his sling bag, and ran away. In an interview, rather than express remorse, he appeared to suggest the shooting was Bautista’s fault, and that people should take criminals’ threats of violence at face value.
“They probably think that we’re joking. We are not joking,” he told GMA News. “When we say [we’re going to hurt you], we will do that.”
“It was just a small amount, he didn’t have to lose his life over it,” Ogdamina said. “He didn’t want to give it to me. You can see that on the CCTV [footage], he didn’t give it to me before I shot him.”
Bautista is now in danger of being paralyzed from the neck down because of the shooting.
Overcome with emotion, Bautista’s family hit the suspect several times upon seeing him at the police station, and said that they are intent on pressing charges.
Bautista, meanwhile, is still recuperating in the intensive care unit of the Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Medical Center in Manila.
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