A PRISONER of Mambaling Police Station who bolted from police escorts on Thursday morning, February 18, 2021, was shot dead by the police on Thursday night in Sitio CYO, Poblacion, Pardo, Cebu City.
Alwen Cereño, 32, a resident of Sitio Kawayan, Quiot Pardo, allegedly initiated a shootout with police officers coming from different units after he noticed he was being followed.
During the incident, Police Staff Sergeant Chuby Caloscos of the Mambaling Police Station was shot in the left leg. His bulletproof vest protected him from a shot to his upper body area.
Caloscos was released from a hospital after treatment. He was presented by Police Chief Debold Sinas to the media on Friday morning, February 19, 2021, at Camp Sergio Osmeña.
Police Major Glenn Hife of the Regional Drug Enforcement Group-Central Visayas said he and police officers from Mambaling Police Station and other units were in a manhunt operation to arrest Cereño after the prisoner escaped from police escorts while traversing in Peace Valley, Barangay Lahug, Cebu City from the Philippine National Police Laboratory back to Mambaling Police Station.
Hife said Cereño is the leader of Spartan, a group of robbers operating in Cebu Province and reportedly selling illegal drugs.
Cereño is a suspect in the shooting and killing of a security guard of a gasoline station in the City of Naga, Cebu. When he was first arrested by the Mambaling Police Station, he was found with firearms and explosives in his possession.
The police have observed Cereño after receiving reports that he was allegedly the mastermind and killer of Police Senior Master Sergeant Maximino Macua of the Provincial Drug Enforcement Group (PDEG) Visayas.
Macua was killed on February 11, 2020, in a failed anti-drug operation in Tabadax, Barangay Mambaling, Cebu City. (BBT, AYB/With NRC)