{"id":44094,"date":"2010-08-23T12:14:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-23T12:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/2010\/08\/23\/former-police-officer-hijacks-tourist-bus-in-philippines\/"},"modified":"2010-08-23T12:14:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-23T12:14:00","slug":"former-police-officer-hijacks-tourist-bus-in-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2010\/08\/23\/former-police-officer-hijacks-tourist-bus-in-philippines.html","title":{"rendered":"Former Police Officer Hijacks Tourist Bus in Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arian AMU; font-size: 10.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arian AMU'; font-size: 10.5pt\">An ex-police officer armed with a high-powered assault rifle hijacked a bus carrying more than 20 Hong Kong tourists including children in the Philippine capital on Monday, police said, reports AFP. <\/p>\n<p>Six hostages, three of them children, were released by the gunman about three hours after the standoff began, with the drama being played out live on national television.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are children and adults on the bus,&#8221; Metro Manila police commander Director Leocadio Santiago said on DZBB radio. &#8220;He is armed with an M-16 assault rifle,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Police said they were negotiating with the gunman, a former police officer who was discharged in 2008 for his alleged involvement in drug-related crimes and extortion, and was demanding to be reinstated.<\/p>\n<p>A national police statement said at least 22 tourists from Hong Kong were on board the bus, along with the driver. Earlier, police had said they were South Koreans.<\/p>\n<p>Live television footage showed the bus parked in front of a grandstand at Rizal Park, a popular tourist destination just a few blocks from the police headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>Santiago identified the suspect as Rolando Mendoza, a decorated former police senior inspector before he was accused and relieved of his post.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A national police statement said at least 22 tourists from&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[14121,14122,14123,10585],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}