Tuesday, October 31, 2006 Tomas to give cash reward to police officers
THE operatives of the Mobile Patrol Group and the Crime Suppression Unit will not be investigated for killing the two suspected robbers in a shootout last Sunday.
“It was a legitimate operation. They were just trying to defend themselves because they were fired at,” Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau Chief Pablo Labra II told reporters yesterday.
The policemen will also be getting up to P25,000 cash reward from Mayor Tomas Osmeña.
“Of course we will give them a reward for fatally putting out the robbers, unless the robbers were stabbed by the people around and not the policemen,” the mayor told reporters yesterday.
The shootout resulted in the death of two of the three robbers who held up three jeepney passengers at 5:30 p.m. along C. Padilla St., in front of the jai alai building in Barangay Mambaling, Cebu City.
Dominic Degamo, 18, of Sitio Lawis, Barangay Mambaling, and Edmer Roman, 19, of Alaska, Mambaling, died more than an hour after they were taken to the emergency room of the Cebu City Medical Center.
The other robber, who managed to escape, remains unidentified.
PO1s Edcel Petecio, Richard Condes and Meonic Cabañero and another team composed of Insp. Rex Campos, SPO1 Serafin Asingjo and PO1 Abraham Sabang were forced to fire back after the three suspects shot the policemen who were chasing them at the interior portion of C. Padilla St.
Roman was found in possession of a .38 revolver loaded with three bullets.
An ice pick was recovered from Degamo.
Police also found the stolen items taken from the three passengers in the two suspects’ possession.
These included two cellular phones, a brown bag containing personal belongings, one wristwatch and two gold rings.
As to the two lending firms that were robbed a few meters away from where beat patrol policemen were standing last Saturday, Mayor Osmeña said such circumstances happen even in cities abroad.
Osmeña believes the recent robberies in the city were pulled off by the same syndicate.
“I will not fault our police just because of what happened. We’re basically fighting one syndicate here and once we dismantle it, we’ll get our peace and order back,” he said. (JST/LCR)
