POLICE are blaming illegal drugs for the fatal shooting on the highway in Barangay Danglag, Consolacion that killed four persons last Friday, Feb. 22.
Chief Supt. Debold Sinas, Police Regional Office 7 director, said the target of the attack was dismissed police officer Jeremias Miñoza Herbieto, 52.
Another victim, Adrian Manlisi Cabunelas, served as Herbieto’s escort, Sinas said. Cabunelas, a resident of Pulpogan 2, Consolacion, was on the local drug watchlist.
The police official said Herbieto may have been killed because of his conflicts with other drug personalities in Cebu.
Sinas also confirmed that one of the victims, Davao native Joel Cabardo, was recently released from the Davao Penal Colony (Dapecol) for illegal drug possession
He said they would check if Herbieto was involved in transporting illegal drugs to Mandaue City, where police recently recovered seven kilos of shabu.
Herbieto was out on bail for an illegal possession of firearms charge in Mandaue City after he was arrested there last month.
SPO3 Emerito Sansan, an investigator of the Consolacion Police Station, identified the other fatality as Wilmer Lawas, a resident of Barangay Langosig, Danao City.
Sansan said Lawas, along with Cabunelas and Cabardo, served as Herbieto’s bodyguards.
He said they also received information that Lawas was involved in illegal drugs and gun-for-hire operations.
Herbieto’s wife Geraldine told police that four masked men on board two motorcycles shot her husband and his companions.
Geraldine, who was riding with her husband, was the only survivor of the incident.
Police will secure her as a potential witness.
Sansan said there were other witnesses to the ambush but they refused to cooperate because they were afraid.
Police are coordinating with establishments near the crime scene to check their security cameras and with Dapecol to determine Cabardo’s background. (from AYB of Superbalita Cebu, JKV)