Rolando Mendoza

August 23, Monday. Ex-police man Rolando Mendoza took a bus full of Hong Kong tourists hostage for 12 hours.
Mendoza was fired in 2008 for alleged involvement in drug-related crimes and extortion. Mendoza was considered one of the top 10 officers in the country in 1986. He said he wanted to be reinstated and his name to be cleared.

Mendoza had twenty five hostages at first, but released seven tourists and two Filipinos at different times throughout the day.

Negotiations lasted an hour but they broke down and the police decided to storm the bus.

The police tried smashing window after window, and threw tear gas and flashbangs in the bus.

The crisis ended when a sniper managed to shoot him in the head. Seven people were found dead in the bus.


One of the most interesting parts of the whole hostage was when the driver climbed out of the window and ran to safety. 

I think and I know that our police force and our SWAT team need more training and equipment. We also need more crowd control in this kind of situation. After the incident, a lot of civilians ran to the bus and gathered around. This just wasted time and slowed the rescue team down.

There was also this fat policeman with no armor and just a helmet and a pistol who was trying to break in through one of the back doors. I like that guy because he had a lot of courage.






I our police force and SWAT team lost some of my respect when they tried to storm the bus because nothing happened. I like the fat policeman because he had a lot of guts. This could have been prevented with better negotiations by our goverment.

Of course, this all would not have happened if the ex-policeman Rolando Mendoza let out his anger in a different way.