Supermarket robbery footage ‘too blurry’

Investigators looking into the botched robbery attempt at a supermarket in Pasig City have asked for help from Camp Crame in identifying the three escaped suspects. The fourth robber, Hernani Lupera Jr., a security guard who used to work at the establishment, was killed in Saturday’s heist along with three supermarket employees.

A fourth employee was wounded and remained under observation in a hospital.

Probers who examined the footage taken by a closed-circuit television camera said that it was too blurred to be of any help in identifying the three robbers who were able to escape. But Chief Insp. Oscar Boyles of the Pasig police investigation unit said that they had asked their counterparts at Camp Crame to enhance the video.

“Hopefully we can identify the three suspects after that,” he told the Inquirer. Lupera and his three cohorts entered the Robinsons supermarket on Ortigas Avenue Extension in Barangay (village) Rosario, Pasig City, shortly after it closed down for the night on Saturday. They tried to force open the vault but one of the employees shouted for help, prompting Lupera to shoot three of them.

When his gun jammed, however, a security officer grabbed a blunt object and hit him repeatedly on the head, killing him. Lupera’s three cohorts immediately escaped even though they were unable to take anything from the establishment.

Boyles said they were also verifying the identities of the owners of the two guns recovered from the scene, a .38-cal. pistol and a 9 mm firearm, through the Philippine National Police database. “If the guns are registered, we’ll know who owns them. Then we can start from there,” he said.—Kristine Felisse Mangunay