MORE NEWS, PAMPANGA

Father detains son, shoots daughter in hostage drama
By George Trillo

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga – In what looked like a movie shooting witnessed by many folks, a 50-year-old man who shot his daughter and took hostage his autistic son for 27 hours and shot his dauighter in Barangay Del Pilar here.

Suspect Dan Carreon is now facing charges of illegal possession of firearms, frustrated parricide, and alarm and scandal.

Wounded was Patricia Carreon, 28, a resident of said barangay, a few meters away from the house of the hostage taker.

City police chief Supt. Benjamin Medina said the suspect was detained at the city jail here after the 27-hour hostage drama that ended about 9:40 p.m. March 16.

The hostage taking ended after he talked via cell phone to his estranged wife with whom he wanted to reunite.

He turned over his Cal.45 pistol which he used to hostage his 18-year-old autistic son Mark whom relatives said was close to his mother.

It was the same gun he used earlier to shoot his daughter Patricia, who was pronounced out of danger at the local Mother Teresa of Culcutta Hospital where she was treated for bullet wounds in both her legs.

Carreon held hostage his two children as soon as the two arrived at his residence in a cramped settlement in Barangay Del Pilar about 5 p.m. March 14.

He had his gun when his children arrived and he shot Patricia who tried to flee as soon as she sensed something was wrong with her father.

Medina said Carreon had demanded that his estranged wife be compelled to live with him again under one roof.

Medina said Patricia and Mark usually visited their father during Sundays after their parents legally separated some years ago. “There was a court case on this and the judge ruled that the children had the option to visit their father during weekends,” he said.

He said the separation was triggered by the suspect’s physical abuse of his wife, even as he noted that eight years ago, Carreon had also hostaged his children, but his family did not push through with any legal case against him.

Hundreds of local folk witnessed the hostage drama amid negotiations led by the police with the support of the suspect’s relatives, including retired journalist Jess Regala and some local officials.
Medina said Carreon tied the hands of his son with a dog chain which was found later to have left bluish mark on Mark’s wrist.

He said Carreon gave up at about 9:40 p.m. the other day after he was given a cell phone which he used to talk to his wife who later told police she merely said yes to all that Carreon had asked her on the phone.

The suspect turned over his pistol, which turned out to be unlicensed, to the negotiators and policemen escorted him to a waiting SWAT van.

City social workers briefly took Mark under their custody and fed him, as he had not eaten a meal during the entire hostage event.

He was later turned over to the care of his mother .