Thursday, July 07, 2005
Summary executioners remain unidentified
After almost seven months, 66 people have died in vigilante-style attacks in Cebu City, but the police force has yet to identify their killers.
Supt. Melvin Gayotin, acting police director, and Insp. Mario Monilar, homicide section chief, yesterday admitted difficulties in pinning down the gunmen.
While both officials agreed that the manner the killings were carried out was the same, they ruled out the possibility that only one group is behind the murders.
Monilar said that each case could have been done by different people who had been victimized by the robbers and wanted to retaliate.
Monilar and Gayotin also lamented the lack of cooperation from witnesses and relatives of the victims.
On suspicions that the killers were a group of policemen—which could explain the relatives’ reluctance to file a complaint with the police—Gayotin said they could always run to the National Bureau of Investigation and the Commission on Human Rights.
“All we have are theories, but we are not sitting on the cases,” Gayotin said.
Gayotin said they have invited several witnesses and relatives to help solve the crimes, but majority declined.
The most important factor in any police investigation is the witnesses’ cooperation, and without it, “We are still facing a blank wall,” the police chief said.
Gayotin also observed that there appeared to be “public acceptance” of the rash of killings. Nearly all of the victims were criminal suspects or convicts.
The latest fatality was Michael Conejos, 25, who died of multiple gunshot wounds in Barangay San Roque, Cebu City last Monday night.
Conejos was jailed thrice at the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center since 1997 to 2004 for robbery, theft and possession of illegal drugs. (JST)
(July 7, 2005 issue)
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