The police are looking into robbery as the motive in the killing of a 16-year-old student by two men on a motorcycle in Project 8, Quezon City.
The shooting of Kevin Reantaso happened three weeks after another 16-year-old student was gunned down in the city.
Reantaso was walking home from a friend’s birthday party at 7:45 p.m. on Wednesday when he was killed.
He was with two other classmates on General Avenue in Barangay Bahay Toro when they met the gunmen who were on a motorcycle.
Senior Insp. Elmer Monsalve, head of the Quezon City Police District’s homicide division, said that they were looking at robbery as the possible motive.
The initial background check on Reantaso showed that he was an average student who was not involved in any group or illegal activity that could have made him a target, Monsalve added.
Investigation showed that Reantaso was walking behind his friends as he was sending a text message on his cell phone.
“His last text was to his younger sibling, saying that he would buy shawarma for her,” Monsalve said.
Adding that they still have to check the footage from a closed-circuit television camera that could have recorded the incident, Monsalve said the suspects might have tried but failed to grab the victim’s cell phone.
According to Monsalve, the street was dark and the light coming from the cell phone’s screen may have drawn the suspects’ attention.
Reantaso, a Grade 10 student, was shot in the back and twice on the left knee as he tried to run from the gunman who alighted from the motorcycle.
His friends told investigators that they did not see what happened to Reantaso because he was behind them.
Monsalve said they would look for similar crimes in the area that involved motorcycle-riding gunmen for the possible identification of the suspects.
Witnesses told investigators that both suspects wore black helmets and jackets.
On Oct. 2, Aldrin Jore, also aged 16, was walking home on Martan Street in Barangay Commonwealth after getting a haircut when a man shot him twice in the head.