Shootout involving police ends with 1 dead, 2 injured

A fatal incident involving police officers occurred at a night restaurant in Songkhla. A shootout at the restaurant between a group of police officers and another group of customers left one dead and two injured. The incident took place in the early hours of the morning of Sunday, January 15 at a late-night diner next to the fire station of the Singha Nakhon municipality.

Witnesses reported that the altercation began when one group, which included police officers and their friends, was making a lot of noise at the restaurant. Other diners who had already been eating peacefully asked the crowd of off-duty officers to quiet down.

This sparked a drunken argument, which escalated when a man from the first group walked to his pickup truck and returned with an M16 rifle. He then opened fire at the police officer’s group, who also pulled out their guns and returned fire in the shootout.

On-duty police arrived at the scene around 2.40am to find that three people had been injured in the shootout. One of the men shot died on the way to the hospital. The other two shooting victims were transported to the hospital for medical care.

Investigating officers recovered six 11mm bullet casings in the restaurant and ten 5.56 M16 rifle bullet casings outside the building near a wall.

After collecting more evidence, the police have identified the man who fired the M16 and started the shootout and are now seeking an arrest warrant for him.

Oddly, there was another police officer who had arrived with the rowdy group but did not enter the restaurant. He informed investigators that he was exhausted from a day of Children’s Day celebrations in Thailand.

When interviewed, he explained that there were seven people in his group including himself. Three were police officers and three were accompanying civilians. The sleepy police officer said he was unaware of what had set off the shootout as he was asleep in the car at the time.