{"id":7804,"date":"2023-02-13T01:00:55","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T00:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=7804"},"modified":"2023-02-10T11:35:38","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T10:35:38","slug":"charges-dropped-against-17-police-officers-in-bloody-sunday-murder-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/charges-dropped-against-17-police-officers-in-bloody-sunday-murder-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Charges dropped against 17 police officers in \u201cBloody Sunday\u201d murder case"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Justice (DOJ) junked charges against 17 police officers <\/span>on January 16, 2023,<\/span> for the murder of labor leader and general secretary of BAYAN-Cavite <\/span>Emmanuel “Manny” Asuncion<\/span><\/a> in Cavite.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The murder case occurred as part of the so-called “Bloody Sunday” massacre or the Calabarzon killings on March 7, 2021, a day when simultaneous police raids took place in the early morning hours in Cavite, Batangas and Rizal, <\/span>killing<\/span><\/a> a total of nine activists and arresting six others.<\/span><\/p>\n

The DOJ justified the decision in the Asuncion case by <\/span>saying<\/span><\/a> that there was a lack of evidence to prove that a crime existed as well as a lack of identification of the perpetrators. According to the <\/span>police officers<\/span><\/a>, they acted in self-defense. Forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun determined, after the <\/span>autopsy<\/span><\/a> of Asuncion’s body on March 12, 2021, that it had to be a targeted killing due to the numerous gunshot wounds, especially in the chest area. She could not draw further <\/span>conclusions<\/span><\/a> due to the lack of access to the dead man’s clothing and the murder scene, among others. As a <\/span>result<\/span><\/a>, it could neither be proven that the officers had acted in self-defense nor that Asuncion had held or fired a weapon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Asuncion’s wife, Liezel Asuncion, did not witness the shooting itself. She was also unable to <\/span>identify<\/span><\/a> the perpetrators because they were masked and kept their nameplates covered. This seemed questionable to Dr. Fortun, as she expressed in an <\/span>interview<\/span><\/a>, since it was an official police operation after all. Dr. Fortun also opined that her forensic medical report had been <\/span>“twisted”<\/span><\/a> by the DOJ to argue that the officers had acted in self-defense. In <\/span>addition<\/span><\/a>, she emphasized that there is always a need for an independent investigation because perpetrators should not be able to investigate their own actions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Liezel Asuncion filed a motion for reconsideration with the DOJ on January 26, 2023. Her 27-page <\/span>motion<\/span><\/a> argues that the police officers acted with \u201cabuse of superior strength, evident premeditation, and conspired with one another.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo \u00a9 Raffy Lerma<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Justice (DOJ) junked charges against 17 police officers on January 16, 2023, for the murder of labor leader and general secretary of BAYAN-Cavite Emmanuel “Manny” Asuncion in Cavite.\u00a0 The murder case occurred as part of the so-called “Bloody Sunday” massacre or the Calabarzon killings on March 7, 2021, a day when simultaneous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[63,58,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights-defenders","category-human-rights-news","category-internal-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7804"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7836,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804\/revisions\/7836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}