The Quezon City mall hit by hammer-wielding robbers Tuesday morning once had a police assistance desk which was later “removed” at the request of one of the shop owners, according to the police station commander in charge of the Cubao commercial area.
Supt. Ramon Pranada pointed this out as authorities and the Araneta Center management reassessed security measures following the heist at Farmers Plaza, where another so-called “martilyo gang” broke into a ground-floor jewelry store and escaped with the loot estimated at P2 million.
Tuesday’s robbery happened two months after a group using the same method ransacked a jewelry store at SM North Edsa also in Quezon City, a nighttime incident that prompted President Benigno Aquino III to see the crime scene for himself. Three people have since been charged in absentia for that earlier robbery, including an Army reservist captain.
Citing eyewitness accounts, police said at least five men pulled off the robbery at First Allied Emporium Jewelry store at Farmers minutes after it opened. Two of them smashed a glass cabinet using hammers and took its contents, while a third served as a lookout. From the store, the trio fled with two more cohorts waiting outside on motorcycles.
Senior Supt. Procopio Lipana, deputy director for operations of the Quezon City Police District, said PO1 Leo Damo, who was posted on General Araneta Avenue, saw the fleeing robbers but could fire only a single shot because of the street crowd. Damo later claimed he hit one of the robbers.
First Allied Emporium, owned by Anacleto Cay, is a ground-floor establishment facing Araneta Avenue and can be accessed without passing through the mall’s main entrance. Its immediate neighbors are mostly pawnshops and moneychangers.
PO3 Jamie de Jesus, the case investigator, said three men wearing baseball caps entered the shop around 9:26 a.m. Two of them pulled out pistols and declared a holdup, holding the five store employees at gunpoint. They were done cleaning out the smashed cabinet within minutes.
Witnesses in adjacent stores recalled hearing the sound of breaking glass, followed by gunfire. “We just hid in our stalls because we were too afraid to check out what it was. After the incident, we were prevented by mall security from taking a closer look,” said a salesperson from a nearby shop.
Security guards posted near one of the mall entrances also fired shots at the fleeing suspects, according to De Jesus.
The jewelry shop’s surveillance camera was still turned off at the time of the robbery, the investigator noted.
In a statement, the Araneta Center management said it would beef up security measures and that “our mall security is fully cooperating with the authorities to solve the case.”
Pranada recalled that in November last year, he ordered the setup of a police assistance desk in front of the row of pawnshops and jewelry shops where the First Allied Emporium Jewelry Store was located.
But a month later, one of the establishments requested the removal of the assistance desk, saying customers were “not comfortable” seeing it.
“They cannot blame us because they asked for it to be removed. We will bring back the desk on Wednesday,” the station commander said.