Who will call down the Trackers?
In movies and TV cop shows, American police would usually—unless they happen to be characters played by actors Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson—take pains to see to it that crime suspects are brought to the police precincts physically intact for questioning.
This means no bruises, no torn clothes, nothing that would smack of police brutality.
Cops would even put their hand above a suspect’s head as he or she boards a patrol car to make sure the passenger didn’t knock the ceiling.
Such was not the case with Cebuano theft suspect Jovan Tejano. He was beaten up so bad he could barely stand as he was shoved inside the women’s-only cell at the Fuente police precinct last Friday afternoon.
Tejano lasted a few hours before breathing his last inside the dingy mini-cell. Not even an emergency rush to the hospital could revive him.
Why wasn’t he brought to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center across the street in the first place, considering the severity of the beating he received before he was turned over?
Police are looking into exactly who clobbered Tejano, who was picked up on suspicion of being the one who broke into a homeowner’s residence.
The violent handling of a suspect, who wasn’t even charged with a crime, has focused the spotlight on a group of civilian assets called “Trackers”.
They are collaborators of the Fuente police, joining checkpoints and patrols, and performing their best service, which begets their name, searching for individuals who rob and steal.
They were the ones who collared Tejano and turned him over to the Fuente station last Thursday.
Will the fact that the Trackers are the creation of the Fuente police chief make an independent police inquiry any easier?
Tejano was allegedly recognized from a homeowner’s security camera video as the one breaking into a house and making off with valuables in sitio Sadra, barangay Sambag, Cebu City, days earlier.
That’s the early account of Fuente police. Where’s the video? Who filed charges?
And who gave these civilian do-gooders the right to lay a hand on a man, who is not, by any stretch of legal fiction, a proper subject of a warrantless arrest?
The robbery took place on July 2. Tejano was picked up on July 7. Whatever crime he was accused of did not occur in the presence of his captors or arise from their personal knowledge of a crime that occurred shortly after that under a “hot pursuit” situation.
If they suspected Tejano of being the robber, a complaint should have been filed and the court allowed to issue a warrant of arrest.
Someone took the law into their own hands.
It smells of vigilantism. Who will call down the Trackers?
