Wednesday, December 19, 2007 Violence linked to frats drops
THE number of shooting incidents dropped “remarkably” in the city in the two weeks after Aristotle Aves’ arrest, Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) Director Patrocinio Comendador said.
Based on the statistics, Comendador said that two weeks before Aves’ arrest last Dec. 3 at Pier 8 in Mandaue City, the Homicide Section recorded 15 shooting cases.
In the two weeks after his arrest, only four shooting-related incidents were recorded, or a decrease of 73.33 percent. All of these cases, Comendador said, were not fraternity-related.
Comendador believes Aves’ arrest has sent a message to criminals and would-be criminals “that the police are seriously running after those involved in shooting incidents.”
Aves, 26, had been listed as one of the 10 most wanted persons in Cebu City and ranked number one in the city’s list of 10 most wanted fraternity members. A P300,000 cash reward was dangled for his arrest.
Aves was arrested by a 14-man CCPO team while he sat on his bunk in an Ormoc City-bound vessel last Dec. 3.
Comendador, in a press conference yesterday, said a total of 20 cases—eight murder, 13 frustrated murder and three attempted murder charges—were filed against Aves. At least 25 victims were listed.
These cases covered the shooting incidents linked to Aves from 2004 up to the present, including the Oct. 4 and 5 drive-by shootings that killed three people and injured four others.
A ballistic and cross-matching test by the PNP 7 Crime Laboratory revealed that the .45 pistol confiscated from Aves during his arrest was the same gun used in the fatal shootings of businessman and former Kiwanis Club of Cebu president Wilson Yu in October 2005, businessman Hiroshi Kusaka last month, and Roland Rico Teves last February.
Yu and Kusaka were shot and killed in Mandaue City. Teves, who was jobless, was shot dead at the North Reclamation Area in Cebu City in front of his pregnant wife.
Last Dec. 10, the crime laboratory came up with a separate result of the ballistic and cross-matching tests on a .45 Colt pistol turned over by Jesus Singson Jr., who was arrested with Aves.
The pistol, allegedly used by Aves in killing his targets, yielded positive results. It may have been used in nine major crimes: three in Mandaue City and six in Cebu City.
In Mandaue City, these were the killings of Bienvenido Quijano, a flower shop worker, last July 17; Taru Suda, another Japanese national, last July 18; and Eric Salubre last July 23.
In Cebu City, these were the shootings of Angelito Reyes, Eugenio Presbetiro, Benjamin Dilao and Jonathan Tabada last Sept. 21, killing Presbetiro; the killing of Armand Panit last Sept. 29; the drive-by shootings that killed Laurence Morados, Lord Stephen Vasquez and William John Aznar and injured Jeffrey Romano, Mhako Repello Buencon-sejo, Rendon Pellerin and Rey Gonzales; and a shooting in a gasoline station on M.J. Cuenco Ave. where police recovered two empty shells. (JST)
