The supreme irony in the senseless death of Police Corporal Noel Ogano Sunday evening in Caloocan City was that it came at the hands of a namesake of a man of peace, Martin Luther King.
The young Ogano, a member of the Special Weapons and Tactics team of the Quezon City Police District, reported for work every day knowing he could be coming home one day inside a box.
Par for the territory for policemen and soldiers, but more so for SWAT and special forces members.
Ogano, according to loved ones who could only cry unabashedly over what befell him, must have thought the incident was a routine call of duty. He failed to inform his wife, a police sergeant, that they have an operation — from which, as it turned out, he was not coming back.
Quezon City Police District chief Brig. Gen. Nicolas Torre III believed nobody had to die when he called the mother of one Martin Luther Nuñez to help convince her son to surrender and face charges for the indiscriminate firing of a gun.
According to accounts, Nuñez went to a wake in Barangay Pasok Putik, Quezon City, and repeatedly fired the gun he brought with him to scare those responsible for breaking the glass window of a family vehicle, or for some other reasons.
He then fled aboard a Grandia van with QCPD operatives catching up with him at home in a subdivision. The cops negotiated but Nuñez replied with gunshots, according to Torre.
A video of the incident showed Ogano falling right outside Nuñez's house, and then picked up on a stretcher by his comrades. Ogano's wound — a gunshot to the shoulder that hit a lung — cost him his life.
Before that, Torre said the police even offered Nuñez and his mother to stay at the QCPD headquarters in Camp Karingal, so he can file for bail if needed.
But while the mother was stubborn, according to Torre, Nuñez was a "character," somebody who had a history of punching people or poking a gun at anybody who happened to have had the misfortune of just crossing paths with him. Torre said Nuñez's neighbors have complained against him, based on reports from barangay officials.
Seemingly, Nuñez had a death wish, not just for himself, but for all he could take along with him — judging by the number of bullets he let loose from his Glock cal. 45 pistol from his house, where he would also breathe his last.
Torre said they are mulling whether to file charges against Nuñez's mother for aggravating a situation that she could have helped resolve.
P/Lt. Col. Jerry Castillo, deputy commander of the district mobile force battalion of QCPD, was wounded in the shootout. He granted an interview after leading the SWAT team, showing where a bullet hit a finger and grazed the side of his stomach.
For Castillo, Christmas 2022 would be extra special as he would be sharing it with his loved ones. Not so for Ogano. Both Ogano and Castillo, however, exemplify the honor pledge that all cops, at least the straight ones, try to live by — to serve the people and protect them from harm.
