(Eagle News) — The hostage-taking in Greenhills Shopping Center has ended at around 8 p.m., nine hours after a disgruntled former security guard of the mall took hostage around 30 persons, including mall employees.
The suspect, Archie Paray, 32, surrendered to the police Monday night, March 2, after nine hours of tense police negotiations. He was arrested by the police shortly after securing the release of all 30 of his hostages.
The suspect claimed that he decided to resort to hostage-taking to stress his grievance against how he was removed from his job way back December.
He said he had thought hard about this decision and that it was not done at the spur of the moment.
“Sinibak kami rito kasi mga guwardya lang kami. Samantala, ang mga guwardya, nagtatrabaho lang. Siya mismo po ang naghamak sa amin,” Paray said speaking before reporters outside the V-Mall after the hostage situation. He mentioned a certain Capt. Molino as the person whom he had a grievance with.
“Kaya ko po naisipan mag-hostage. Itong sitwasyon na ito, December pa ito,” he claimed. “Pinag-isipan ko ito,” he said.
All his 30 hostages had been released after negotiations led by San Juan City police with the hostage taker.
Police grabbed the suspect after he spoke to the media, as he was still armed. Earlier, he did not agree to leave the mall without a gun after the release of the hostages.
The hostage situation started at around 11 a.m. after Paray entered the V-Mall, and shot a fellow security guard.
The injured guard, identified as OIC Ronald Velita, was brought to the Cardinal Santos Medical Center and is on stable condition as of 12 noon, said San Juan Mayor Francisco Zamora.
Paray, a former security guard at the Safeguard Armor Security Corporation (SASCOR), was fired after allegedly being on AWOL or absent without leave.
