5 killed in Quezon City gunfight between cops and robbers

MANILA, Philippines—Three robbers were killed in  gunfights  with policemen late Friday afternoon in Quezon City in which one of the officers and a jeepney driver also died. Two other hoods managed to escape.

Police said the shootout happened around 5:30 p.m. after the robbers held up passengers of one jeepney in Barangay North Fairview and were in the process of robbing passengers in a second jeepney.

Police recovered two .38-caliber revolvers from the slain robbers, who had not been identified by Saturday afternoon but had been pointed to by some of the passengers as among the very ones who had robbed them.

Police identified the two other fatalities as PO3 Ermin Hipolito, 50, and Ramilo Due, 49, who drove one of the jeepneys. PO1 Syril Agitong and passenger Gerry Igama, 49, were wounded and hospitalized.

Case investigator SPO1 Antonio Galauran said that after robbing the passengers of Ignacio Rigor’s jeepney bound for Fairview, the robbers got off, crossed Regalado Avenue and then boarded Due’s jeepney.

On reaching the corner of Ipil Street, the men pulled out their guns and announced a hold-up, telling Due to keep on driving as they divested his passengers of their valuables, Galauran said.

Just then the driver noticed a police patrol car nearby and drove by two policemen—Hipolito and Agitong, who happened to be investigating a traffic accident—and yelled at them for help, Galauran added.

At that point, Galauran said citing witnesses, one of the robbers shot the driver in the back, triggering the gunfight with the two cops. Due died on the spot.

The two policemen and one of the robbers were hit in the first round of shooting, and back-up officers chased and killed two other robbers in a second shootout moments later, Galauran added.

He said the two officers and the wounded passenger were rushed to the Commonwealth Hospital but Hipolito died on the way. Agitong sustained a gunshot wound in one leg. The robber they shot was taken to the Far Eastern University Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.

Galauran said the other two robbers were killed when they exchanged gunfire with pursuing policemen of the Fairview police station along Quirino Highway, but two others managed to escape.