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Mayhem in Manila: 9 killed on hijacked bus

| August 24, 2010 9:00 PM

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - It looked like a hostage rescue in slow motion: Police creeping up on the bus with sledgehammers and smashing first one window, then another, then trying and failing to rip open the door.

When they finally got inside, authorities said, they found eight bodies: seven Hong Kong tourists and the ex-policeman who had seized the bus to demand his job back. Another tourist later died in the hospital, a Chinese Embassy spokesman said.

The bloody denouement to the 12-hour drama in the heart of the Philippine capital, witnessed live on TV, rattled a country already accustomed to kidnappings and violence blamed on Muslim rebels. It provoked China's condemnation and demands for an explanation, and an acknowledgment from Philippine President Benigno Aquino III that his police need more training and equipment.

It was 10:15 a.m. Monday in Manila when Rolando Mendoza, 55 and married with three children, hitched a ride with the tourists as they visited historic sites in the city. He wore a camouflage uniform and carried an M16 rifle but didn't seem unusual in the heavily policed capital.

Then he announced that he was taking the travelers hostage to win back his job.

At first, matters proceeded peacefully. The hijacker freed nine hostages - three women and three children, all tourists, an elderly Hong Kong man, a Filipino photographer and his Filipino assistant - leaving 15 tourists and the Filipino driver on board.

Then negotiations began to go awry. The hijacker's brother Gregorio, also a Manila policeman, was asked to talk to him through the driver's window but grew so agitated in claiming Mendoza had been unfairly sacked that police hustled him away, fearing he would inflame the situation.

That apparently angered Mendoza into firing a warning shot. Police made an initial attempt to board the bus, and the hijacker shot and wounded a police sharpshooter, said Nelson Yabut, head of the assault team. Single shots, then a burst of automatic fire, echoed through the night.