2 dead in drug buy-bust shootout in Digos City

DIGOS CITY—A jail personnel was killed while a suspected drug dealer was injured during a shootout with anti-drugs police operatives here Thursday evening.

Senior Insp. Dequizo Pante of the provincial anti-drugs special operation task force identified the slain Bureau of Jail Management and Penology employee as Jail Officer 4 Luther King Lugan, 43, who was assigned at the city jail.

Pante said PAIDSOFT operatives conducted a buy-bust operation on an apartment that suspected drug dealer Eddie Galvez was renting early evening Thursday.

Pante said a poseur buyer was sent to Galvez, who had been under surveillance on suspicions of involvement in illegal drugs.

But he said Galvez and Lugan—who turned out to be an accomplice—sensed it was a buy-bust and started firing at the lawmen who were moving in.

Lugan was fatally hit and died while Galvez sustained an injury on the leg.

“Galvez was rushed to the Davao del Sur Provincial Hospital due to a bullet injury,” Pante said.

He said Galvez’s wife, who is also a suspect, managed to elude arrest.

Aside from the handguns the suspects used, Pante said sachets of suspected shabu were also recovered after the incident.