Briones: Deflection

WHAT’S with the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO)?

I’ve never seen it so defensive since former Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte took over Malacañang and declared war against all forms of criminality, with illegal drugs getting a special citation, two years ago.

Then again, it’s not every day that your personnel get involved in a shooting that killed a four-year-old boy.

And that’s exactly what happened to PO3 Raydale Sardual, PO2 Dennis Estrada and PO1s Rey Dadula and Wilbert Perez last Tuesday when they confronted four drug personalities in Sitio Bato, Barangay Ermita.

The four are drug enforcement unit (DEU) operatives of the Carbon Police Station.

“It was a validation of a report that drug personalities were repacking shabu and having a pot session in the area,” said Senior Supt. Royina Garma, CCPO director. “(It was) not a buy-bust,” she said.

So had they not been there, the tragedy that befell Skyler Abatayo would have been averted.

Because that’s what it was. A tragedy. But over the last two years, there have been so many tragedies in the government’s campaign against illegal drugs, so what made this particular incident stand out?

It even garnered the attention of Camp Crame all the way in Metro Manila.

Get this, it was Camp Crame that issued a statement saying that the DEU operatives tested negative of gunpowder burns two days after they took the paraffin test.

It was also Camp Crame that informed the public that the four officers had been relieved pending investigation.

“While the four DEU operatives were reportedly found negative in paraffin tests, we still could not totally discount their responsibility in the death of Skyler pending the final outcome of the investigation,” its statement read.

Police Regional Office 7 Director Debold Sinas even reportedly accompanied Garma to the Carbon Police Station right after the incident.

I know the organization has been trying to put on a mass-friendly face after all the flak it has gotten since the bloody anti-drugs drive started.

A four-year-old getting shot in the chest by a stray bullet that was fired during a scuffle between police officers and drug personalities doesn’t help that cause.

But neither does deflection.

Garma said that her men stopped pursuing the drug personalities to rush Skyler to the hospital.

She also lamented that there was not a single barangay official when the incident happened.

But the last straw for me was the CCPO’s revelation that Skyler’s father Mark Anthony is on the drugs watch list of two police stations.

I thought this was all about Skyler’s death.

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