Gunmen kill 4 drug-linked targets in east Metro

Some people appear to be taking to heart the Eastern Police District’s theme for its antidrug campaign: “Eliminate the pusher….”

Between Monday and Tuesday, four drug suspects, three of them accused of selling drugs, were killed in separate shooting incidents in the cities of Pasig, Marikina and Mandaluyong.

A report to Chief Supt. Romulo Sapitula, EPD director, said Glend Monteverde, 39, was shot in the head by a still-unidentified man in front of his house at Champaca 2 in Barangay Fortune, Marikina City, on Tuesday.

Senior Supt. Lorenzo Holanday, Marikina police chief, said Monteverde was a suspected drug pusher. Found beside his body were an empty sachet and a .45-caliber bullet casing.

Also on Monday, Danica Guerzon, 21, was shot dead in an eatery on GSIS Road corner Ortigas Avenue Extension in Barangay Rosario, Pasig.

According to witnesses, three masked men entered the eatery and shot the victim, killing her on the spot.

Sapitula said Guerzon was on the police drug watch list as a pusher. She was described as someone “hooked on illegal drugs” and also involved in the drug trade in her barangay and nearby areas.

In Mandaluyong, 44-year-old Edgardo Abejar was shot dead by one of the eight unidentified men who arrived on four motorcycles at Sitio 1, Barangay San Jose, around 7 p.m. Monday, case investigator PO3 Donald Banes said.

Abejar wife’s, Adeliza, reported her husband’s killing to the police at 8:45 p.m. Monday.  The victim, a steel fabricator, was declared dead on arrival at Mandaluyong City Medical Center due to two gunshot wounds.

Chief Insp. Jose Villarta, head of the investigation unit of the Mandaluyong police, said the victim was reportedly on the barangay drug watch list.

In Marikina City, one of two masked assailants wearing jackets barged into the house of Russel Jocson, 44, on Narlugod Street, Barangay Sto. Niño, as he was about to sleep on Tuesday. He was shot repeatedly in the head.

The police claimed that Jocson, despite surrendering earlier to barangay officials, continued to sell drugs.

The EPD has been intensifying its drive against illegal drugs, asking the public on its social media accounts to work with the police in “eliminating the pushers and rehabilitating the users of illegal drugs toward a better community free from illegal drugs.”

Sapitula said a thorough investigation of the killings was under way, adding that “dedicated investigators” were looking into the four cases.