QC cops have killed 12 since Digong took over

THE SUSPECTS fired first and hit an undercover officer, who got up unharmed thanks to his bulletproof vest. His backup team then moved in and sealed his shooters’ doom.

The Quezon City Police District (QCPD) gave this account of the “encounter” that left four crime suspects dead early Monday morning—and also brought to 12 the number of persons killed by lawmen in the city since the Duterte administration took over.

The death toll kept rising just as the Senate was being asked to investigate the surge in killings attributed to police operations, wherein the officers always maintained that they only fired back at the suspects in self-defense.

The four men killed on Monday were allegedly the remnants of a syndicate involved in drug dealing, car theft and robbery. The QCPD chief, Senior Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, identified them as Earl Oronio Javier, Ignacio Dela Cruz Rana, an alias John and a Jake.

They were tagged as members of the Salvacion Briones crime group that operated in Metro Manila and nearby Bulacan and Cavite provinces.

They were supposed to be entrapped by the District Anti-illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Group in a buy-bust operation in the wee hours of Monday on C.P. Garcia Avenue near Magiting Street, Barangay UP Campus.

At 1:15 a.m., PO3 Joebert Garcia, the designated poseur buyer, met with the suspects who arrived at the area in a silver Toyota Innova. They were supposed to sell him 50 grams of “shabu” worth P100,000.

According to a report prepared by Garcia, he was about to call his backup unit hiding nearby when the suspects pulled out handguns and fired at him, hitting him in the back. He escaped unharmed, however, because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Ignacio and Earl were killed on the spot by the responding officers after an exchange of gunfire, while the two other suspects were able to flee “on a motorcycle,’’ Garcia said.

But the two men on the bike were later cornered on Maharlika Street near Elliptical Road. The QCPD said they were asked to surrender but still fired at the pursuing team.

The QCPD said the four suspects were carrying four .45-cal. pistols, and in their vehicle they kept a kilo of shabu, a weighing scale, a stainless steel spoon and  five aluminum foil strips.

Eleazar described them as members of a group whose leader, Briones, and accomplices Aswanie Dipatuan, Albert Monitor and Amilojack Briones were arrested late last year.

The QCPD chief on Monday said 12 drug suspects had been killed in police operations in the city since July 1. He stressed that the suspects initiated the gunfights.

Since the start of the month, 273 drug users and peddlers have been arrested by the QCPD, while more than 2,000 voluntarily surrendered to their respective barangay officials and were turned over to the district command, the official added. With reports from Jenele Mane and Pam Castro