6 rob suspects dead in QC shootout
Cops eye group’s link to Talayan rob-slay case
MANILA, Philippines – Police are trying to determine if the six men killed in a shootout with Quezon City policemen Sunday night were the same ones who robbed and killed five people in a house in a posh subdivision last week.
Only three of the six men have been identified: PO1 Lino Acedera, Franklin Violeta and Mauro Lerpido, reportedly a member of the Biņan Boys Stuntman Group in Laguna province.
Senior Supt. Miguel Laurel, chief of the Manila Police District directorial staff, said Acedera was a member of the MPD District Mobile Force.
Five of the Quezon City policemen who traded shots with the suspected gang members were wounded in the incident.
SPO3 Jacobo Miranda, SPO2 Emmanuel Apostol, PO3 Allan Abraham and PO1s Zandro Sotto and Ronald Tangilan were taken to different hospitals for gunshot wounds.
Miranda and Apostol are with the District Police Intelligence Operations Unit (DPIOU) while the others are members of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit.
The shootout occurred at around 9 p.m. Sunday on Agno Street near the corner of Cordillera Street in Barangay Doņa Josefa, Sta. Mesa Heights, just a short distance away from Talayan Village where a group of men ransacked a house last Tuesday, killed five household members and then set the house on fire by dousing it with gasoline.
Reports from the Quezon City Police District Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit said that hours before the shootout, DPIOU members received a phone call from a concerned resident in Barangay Doņa Josefa about two cars – a black Honda Jazz (ZEJ 867) and a silver Mitsubishi Galant (THD 918) – roaming in the area.
When the police went to the site to check the report, they saw the two cars and tried to flag the vehicles down. The people inside the cars, however, opened fire on the lawmen, triggering a shootout.
Acedera, who was alone in the Honda Jazz, was killed instantly, while the passengers in the Galant kept on firing, prompting DPIOU members to call for reinforcements from the SWAT unit, which immediately responded.
Police also found on the scene two .45 caliber pistols, three hand grenades, an M-16 rifle, a machine pistol, an M1 carbine, an improvised.38 caliber revolver, assorted ammunition, plastic handcuffs, brown packaging tape, a hammer, a metal saw, gloves and three containers of gasoline.