Philippine police chief defends ‘Davao Boys’, the secretive squad of 10 men that has killed dozens of drug suspects
The special unit has racked up the highest number of kills in Quezon City, a violent frontline in Rodrigo Duterte’s ferocious anti-narcotics campaign
The police chief of the Philippines has stood by the head of a secretive unit behind dozens of killings in the country’s war on drugs, saying officers fired only in self-defence and the death toll reflected the danger and the scale of the narcotics problem.
National police chief Ronald dela Rosa was responding to a Reuters Special Report that spent four months examining killings by one group of policemen from or near Davao City, the hometown of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
Dela Rosa said police district 6 in Quezon City had Metro Manila’s most serious drug problem and he personally sent squad commander Lito Patay there because he was a “very professional” and “very dedicated” officer capable of dealing with it.
Patay hand-picked and headed a unit of 10 men who called themselves the “Davao Boys”, which racked up the highest number of kills in Quezon City, a violent frontline in Duterte’s ferocious anti-narcotics campaign.
Police station 6 officers killed 108 people in anti-drug operations from July 2016 through June 2017, the campaign’s first year, accounting for 39 per cent of Quezon City’s body count, according to official crime reports analysed by Reuters.
