Sunday, December 30, 2007 Cop behind accidental shooting of toddler to end year in jail
THE police range officer whose firearm accidentally went off and killed a three-year-old boy last Friday will be spending New Year’s Eve inside a stockade.
Homicide Section Chief Mario Monilar said that PO3 Benjamin “Benjon” Herbias Jr., 44, will remain at the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) detention cell until the complaint for reckless imprudence resulting in homicide is filed against him on Wednesday.
The complaint was not filed before the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office yesterday because the police still needed to complete the documents, such as affidavits and the death certificate of three-year-old Shane Kent Bel Lunzaga.
Monilar said that the Homicide Section will also recommend for the Regional Internal Affairs Service (RIAS) 7 to handle the administrative investigation against Herbias for serious neglect of duty.
Lunzaga died of a gunshot wound in the chest when Herbias’ caliber .357 revolver went off inside his rented room in Sitio Quadrangle, Barangay Lorega-San Miguel. Herbias’ live-in partner Brenda C. Siarez, 34, also got hit in the left leg.
Herbias, a member of the alert team of the Cebu City Police Office Security and Service Group (SSG), surrendered to Senior Insp. Sarah Jean Recla, SSG deputy chief.
According to the initial investigation by a team of homicide investigators led by SPO4 Alex Dacua, the accident occurred at 11:40 a.m. inside Herbias’ rented room on the second level of a two-story house.
Herbias was preparing for work and was holding his revolver, about to put it in a pouch tucked in his waistband, when Siarez opened the door from outside.
The door reportedly hit Herbias’ hand, causing the policeman to pull the trigger by accident.
The slug hit Siarez’s lower left leg before it pierced through the wooden floor and hit the boy, who was sleeping on a bamboo bed at the lower level of the house.
The slug hit Lunzaga’s chest. He did not make it alive at the Cebu City Medical Center, while Siarez was taken to Chong Hua Hospital. (JST)
