Two off-duty military police officers in civilian clothes and a private security guard sustained minor injuries in a shooting on Monday night that followed a verbal sparring match at a restaurant in Phnom Penh, according to police.
Two groups of men, one with four members and the other with three, began arguing over a woman at about 9 p.m. while dining at separate tables at the Sre Ambil restaurant in Daun Penh district, according to Chaktomuk commune police chief Chuob Sokun.
About 30 minutes after the men left the establishment, one group tracked down the other, which was loitering with security guards and off-duty military police outside a massage parlor on Street 252, Mr. Sokun said.
“After the suspects found [the other group], the suspects shot three times into the ground to threaten them not to keep in touch with or love [the woman]. Suddenly, the bullets ricocheted and injured three men; two were district military police and one was a security guard,” he said.
Mr. Sokun said the target of the attack was Meas Phanith, a mechanic who was not injured in the shooting, which was carried out by an armed man on a Honda Dream motorbike with two others.
“It’s lucky that they shot to threaten and did not shoot to kill,” he said. “But how dare they shoot in public as they please.”
The police chief said commune police and district military police were working together to identify and track down the suspects, adding he did not know the names of the injured military police officers.
Nann Dara, the security guard who was injured when a bullet struck his hand, said one of the officers was grazed by a bullet in the thigh and that the other was grazed in the chest.
Mr. Dara described the incident as surreal.
“I was playing cards and then three men stopped a motorbike and shot at the ground in front of my table,” he said. “It was like a movie—me watching people come back to take revenge against someone.”
