PRETTY IN PINK Stephanie Nicole Ella (second from left), her 5-year-old brother Ken and her cousins eagerly await New Year’s Eve outside their home in Caloocan City unaware that she would be hit by a stray bullet at midnight. Note date on photo at right. PHOTO COURTESY OF ELLA FAMILY (file photo)
MANILA, Philippines–Two years after the death of seven-year-old Stephanie Nicole Ella, a stray-bullet victim, the Philippine National Police (PNP) admitted that their search for the culprit is still like “searching for a needle in a haystack.”
Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina, PNP’s officer-in-charge, said they have matched the slug taken from Ella to a total of 156, 444 registered, undergoing registration and seized loose firearms.
“Pinatututukan ko ho ‘yan. Ang sabi ko mahirap ito para tayong naghahanap ng needle in a haystack,” Espina said over a radio interview with DZMM.
(I want the police to focus on that (case). But I already said it’s difficult because it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.)
“Sa lahat ng mga mahuhuli kasi pinatingnan na ho sa lahat ng rehistradong firearm ‘yan. Wala ho. So, lahat ng mahuhuli dyan from thereon, sabi ko i-match n’yo,” he added.
(I have asked the police to look for the slug’s match in ever loose firearms they would seize. But there has been no match yet.)
Espina explained that there has to be a process that should be followed but assured that they will not stop until the culprit has been identified.
Ella and her family were watching fireworks on the eve of 2013 when she was hit by a stray bullet.
The bullet that pierced Ella’s head came from a .45 caliber pistol. She was rushed to East Avenue Medical Center in Quezon City but after almost two days of suffering a series of cardiac arrests and later being in comatose, doctors pronounced her dead.
“We will continue our search. We will not stop. We just have to go through the tedious process of collating evidence,” he added.
Two years later, justice is still elusive for Ella and her family. Despite the promises of the PNP to solve the case, no one has been positively identified as the shooter.
Matching the bullet with registered firearms is made easier with Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS), Espina said, since it provides a computerized database of all registered firearms.
IBIS captures, stores, compares and retrieves large quantities of information about firearms in a database that is accessible to all investigative units of the PNP.
“It’s hard when we compare with loose firearms. We have to go through the process of recovering firearms… We just have to go through the tedious process of collating evidence,” he added.
This year, another victim–a 13-year-old girl–was hit by a stray bullet in Caloocan.
Espina said he instructed National Capital Region Police Office Chief Carmelo E. Valmoria to do a saturation drive in Caloocan particularly in Tala.
RELATED STORIES
Nicole Ella, 7, dies; pa stops docs, says she’s suffered enough
Father of stray bullet victim still optimistic case will be solved soon