Friday, January 04, 2008 Pa says her daughter identified neighbor’s son as shooter in Lapu incident
UNLESS there is an independent witness or the 11-year-old victim gets well and testifies she was intentionally shot by a 12-year-old male neighbor, the police in Lapu-Lapu cannot hold the boy’s parents for any criminal liability.
Mario (not his real name, because he is a minor) was released to his parents by the City Social Welfare Office past 5 a.m. last Tuesday, some five hours after the incident in Barangay Basak.
Republic Act 9344 or the Comprehensive Juvenile Justice and Welfare System Law protects a minor from any liability for criminal acts.
“We could not oppose the release of the boy, thanks to those congressmen and senators that passed this new law,” said Acting Police Director Louie Oppus.
He said, though, that they are looking into Article 59 of the Child and Youth Welfare Code, which penalizes the owner of a deadly weapon that ends up in a minor’s possession.
“I have ordered my men to dig deeper because we have different versions on the incident. We can pin down the parents if we have witnesses to bolster the claim that the gun was actually pointed at the girl,” he said.
For now, even an illegal possession of firearm case against the parents would probably not prosper in court, because it will need the boy to testify against his own parents.
“The parents can easily deny that the gun was in their possession. But definitely we will be filing charges,” Oppus said.
Stephanie Apostol’s condition was improving yesterday, as doctors focused on drawing out the blood that has seeped into her lungs.
Apostol was outside her house, watching other children set off pyrotechnics a few minutes after midnight of Jan. 1, when hit by a bullet from a .357 paltik revolver. She was wounded in the chest.
According to one version of the story, the boy’s parents were fighting and he was told to unload the gun. After removing four bullets, he allegedly flung the gun to a table, but it fired, hitting Apostol who was standing some five meters away. (The family’s front door was open.)
Apostol’s father Thadeo, however, said over dyLA that Stephanie told him that Mario pointed the gun at her.
“She did not duck because she thought it was a toy gun,” he added in Cebuano. (AIV)
