Stabbing suspect surrenders

A man who confessed to stabbing a 15-year-old student during the Mendiola riot on Sunday surrendered to Manila police Tuesday night.

The suspect, identified as Richerd Nonato Francisco of Tondo, Manila, turned himself in to the Barbosa police station at 10:55 p.m. with his son and a police friend.

According to Station Commander Lt. Col. Arwen Nacional, Francisco confessed to stabbing a minor, identified only as “MC,” a 15-year-old 10th-grade student from Taguig City.

Francisco, a watch repairman in the Recto Avenue area, said he stabbed the victim after seeing him destroying a parked motorcycle owned by a member of the Manila Police District’s Traffic and Management and Response Unit.

The incident occurred around 8:30 p.m. on Sunday at the corner of C.M. Recto and Quezon Boulevard, amid a chaotic scene where a group of masked rioters was filmed kicking and setting fire to a parked motorcycle.

Authorities believe the victim is the lone fatality from the riot after news reports said a person died at the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center from a stab wound.