An ambush attack perpetrated by still unidentified gunmen left a police official wounded yesterday morning in Barangay Buri, Palo, Leyte.

The victim, identified as Police Senior Inspector Jovel Young, was shot outside his house around 7:10 a.m. while he was with his two children aboard a vehicle.

The 39-year-old officer — although sustaining multiple gunshot wounds — survived the attack along with his family.

“Our initial investigation showed that the unknown gunmen were onboard a white van and grey-colored Fortuner vehicle,” Chief Inspector Joemen Collado, chief of Palo municipal police station said in an online statement.

Initial reports indicated that the police officer was on his way to the regional police headquarters — located some four kilometers away from his residence — when the shooting happened.

Investigators recovered 36 empty bullet shells from the crime scene.

Young, a former Ormoc City Drug Enforcement Unit chief, is currently assigned at the personnel holding unit of the Police Regional Office-Eastern Visayas at Camp Ruperto Kangleon in Palo.

He is now being treated in a hospital in Tacloban City while local police investigate the incident.