Binondo police station chief under fire over Divisoria mall bombing

Heads are beginning to roll because of the fatal Divisoria mall grenade explosion during last Saturday’s jewelry shop robbery after Manila Mayor Lito Atienza personally ordered Manila police chief Superintendent Avelino Razon Jr. to investigate the police commander involved.

Atienza said he wants Binondo police station commander Superintendent Juanito de Guzman and his men to explain why it was only the mall guards who were around to engage the robbers, enabling the five holdup men to escape.

There were reportedly no lawmen in the mall at the time.

Two persons were killed, a 16-year-old student and a Chinese tourist, in the grenade lobbing incident while 17 others were injured. The robbers hurled the grenade near an escalator in their escape after scooping up the merchandise of a jewelry shop.

Atienza also asked Razon to deploy more policemen in the city’s malls and markets to prevent a repetition of the incident.

Meanwhile, one of the four men who robbed a Jollibee branch in Morong, Rizal Sunday night was killed when they engaged responding policemen in a brief shootout.

The fatality, however, remained unidentified while his cohorts managed to escape. The former was described as about 20 years old, 5’2" in height and wearing a blue shirt and denim pants.

But the driver of the tricycle — identified as Sonny Manzano, 48, of Cainta, Rizal — commandeered by the suspects was hit in the body. He was rushed to the Rizal Provincial Hospital.

Investigation showed that the suspects armed with handguns entered and robbed the Jollibee outlet in Barangay Wawa when it was about to close on Sunday night.

The Morong police was tipped off that a robbery was in progress inside the establishment by a telephone caller. This prompted the deployment of a team of lawmen to go after the suspects.

The suspects had just left the food outlet when the responding lawmen arrived.

The police followed the tricycle commandeered by the robbers when they left the outlet. But upon seeing the policemen, the suspects started to shoot, triggering a shootout. – Jose Aravilla and Shiela Crisostomo