“License to Kill”

thereafter, gunshots rang out, and the shouting stopped. 180 After the shooting, the family
was surprised to find two dead bodies with gunshot wounds in their home: that of
Agrigado, who appeared to have been shot in the mouth, and of Raffy Sardido, 31, a
neighbor who had also been identified as a drug user and possible drug dealer. 181 Sardido
was not in the home when the gunmen had arrived, so the family assumes that he was
brought inside during the raid. 182
The police report said the men died under very different circumstances. It stated that an
undercover police officer tried to buy drugs from Agrigado, and after completing the deal,
removed his baseball cap to signal to his fellow officers to close in, “but one bystander
shouted pulis yang kausup niyo!” (“That is the police you are talking to!”) and Agrigado
fled. The police followed him to a “make-shift house” where “four male suspects [were]
having a pot session”:
While searching for the whereabouts of suspect, RAFFY SARDIDO and
REYNALDO AGRIGADO fired their respective firearms to the police
operatives who luckily did not hit. At this instance, [police officers]
retaliated in order to protect themselves from their armed aggressor, hitting
both suspects that led to their death. 183
Agrigado’s family members reject the police version of his death, pointing out that
Agrigado did not own a gun, and had been sleeping inside their home when the police
came to raid their home.
During the same police operation, police shot a third person, Roldan Amora, 35, inside his
home. 184 According to a relative of Agrigado, who is also Amora’s neighbor, Amora was ill
with a high fever and sleeping on the ground of his darkened third-floor room when he was
180 Ibid.
181 Ibid.
182 Ibid.
183 Binondo Police Station, Spot Report signed by Police Senior Inspector Rommel Anicete, September 28, 2016 (on file with
Human Rights Watch).
184 Human Rights Watch interview with relative of Renaldo Agrigado, name withheld, October 18, 2016.
63 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | MARCH 2017