CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY –– Another policeman was shot dead by gunmen on a motorcycle only weeks after the unsolved killing of a policeman here.
Corporal El John Capawa, 30, was on his way home to Barangay Camaman-an around 7 p.m. on Wednesday when attacked by two motorcycle-riding assailants, Maj. Evan Viñas, city police spokesperson, told the Inquirer in a phone interview on Thursday, Jan. 21.
Capawa, who is married, was assigned at the Regional Personnel Holdling and Accounting Unit (RPHAU) but had been detailed at the plans and strategic management division of the regional police office in Camp 1Lt. Vicente Alagar, Barangay Lapasan here.
Viñas said four bullets fired from a .45 caliber pistol killed the victim.
Before he was assigned at the regional police office, Capawa had been detailed at the city mobile force company and the city drug enforcement unit, Viñas added.
His death came barely a month after another policeman assigned at the RPHAU was also shot to death by still-unidentified assailants not far from Camp Alagar.
Patrolman Roy Aguas, 42, was renting a room inside Camp Alagar and probably was on his way to the Carmen police station, where he was detailed when he was shot on Dec. 26 last year, Chief Master Sgt. Ronie Donasco, an investigator at the Agora police station, said in an earlier interview.
Donasco said all the bullets hit Aguas in the head, resulting in his instantaneous death.
“There was an indication that the shooter was a professional,” the investigator said, adding that the policeman did not even have time to shoot back at his attackers.
Capawa’s death on Wednesday came after a fire broke out and gutted a two-story building owned by the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (Cocpo) in Barangay Carmen.
The building used to serve as the former headquarters of the city police office, but was used as living quarters of Lt. Col. Aaron Mandia, chief of the regional logistics division, and three other police officers.
Viñas said the Bureau of Fire Protection was still trying to find out the cause of the fire that damaged about P200,000 in the building structure.
Mandia, who lost his service firearms, ammunition, and most of his personal belongings, including his Toyota Innova, pegged his property damage at P2 million, Viñas added.