Monday, July 28, 2008 Bikers ambush 2 teenagers By Jovy S. Taghoy Sun.Star Staff Reporter
TWO boys identified as gang members were killed in an ambush along E. Sabellano St. at the corner of San Carlos Heights in Barangay Quiot, Cebu City past 1 p.m. yesterday.
John Rey D. Genosas, 14, of Sitio Bogo, Quiot, died after being shot four times in the head.
His neighbor Roel Batuto, 17, was taken to Cebu City Medical Center but died on the way there. He also took a bullet in the head.
The bodies of the victims were brought to San Fernando Funeral Homes.
The police recovered three .32 caliber shells and a .45 caliber shell from the crime scene.
Questioned
SPO1 Roger Nedamo, who led a Homicide Section team that rushed to the scene, said the victims came from the barangay hall of neighboring Barangay Basak Pardo.
Genosas and Batuto were allegedly invited for questioning an hour before the attack, which happened while they were riding a tricycle.
Genosas was seated behind the tricycle driver while Batuto was with a female passenger on the sidecar’s rear seats when fired upon by two men on a motorcycle.
The gunmen were observed to be good shooters and sure of their victims. The other passengers were unharmed. A man and a woman occupied the sidecar’s front seats.
Nedamo said they are still investigating if the attack was gang-related or not.
Information that he, PO3 Buenventura Ursaiz, and PO1 Lou Pagara gathered showed that the attack occurred at 1:45 p.m.
Calculated
Tricycle driver Jeffrey Cartilla, 22, told Pagara that the gunmen blocked his vehicle.
Cartilla said he was forced to stop because he nearly hit the motorcycle, whose riders quickly alighted and pumped bullets into the victims.
Genosas was reportedly shot by the motorcycle driver, while the rider fired at Batuto.
The other passengers scampered in different directions when the shots rang out.
Before leaving, one attacker fired two more bullets into Genosas, who was still moving, to finish him off.
Nedamo and his team were told that the victims belonged to a gang, which was the same information Basak Pardo Barangay Captain Dave Tumulak received.
In a brief interview with Sun.Star Cebu, however, Genosas’ father Loreto said his son was just a friendly person and not a member of any fraternity or gang.
“Himarkada lang gyud na siya. Wa na’y kontra (He sought out friends and had no enemies),” he said of the elder of his two children.
Loreto said that before noon yesterday, tanods invited his son to go to the Basak Pardo barangay hall for an investigation.
Cleared
In a telephone interview, Tumulak confirmed inviting Genosas and five others in relation to a shooting incident in front of the Holy Cross Parish at 1:30 a.m. yesterday.
Genosas and his companions were mentioned as among those who were behind the attack that injured Basak Pardo resident Vicente Remedio, 21, in his right leg.
Genosas and the others, however, were released at 12:32 p.m. after they were cleared.
A 17-year-old member of their group who was not around during the investigation was tagged as the one who shot Remedio.
Before they left, Tumulak said, Genosas and two members of their gang even signed a promise in the barangay logbook that they will help look for the suspect and that
they not give their parents any trouble.
He said that moments after leaving, the group came rushing back and told him that rival gang members were seen along the highway as if waiting for them.
Some, Tumulak said, allegedly rode a motorcycle.
He said he offered them a ride home, but they refused and instead asked for P20 for their tricycle fare.
Tumulak said one told him that they will not head home yet because they still needed to go to Sabellano St.
He said he was surprised to learn that Genosas and Batuto were killed about an hour after they left the barangay hall.
