Cops under the gun over Atenean’s slay

An inspection of service firearms issued to selected members of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) would be conducted as part of the investigation into the killing of Ateneo law graduate Jose Ramon Llamas.

Pasay City chief of police Senior Superintendent Oscar Catalan said yesterday he would be filing the request for ballistic tests of NCRPO members amid suspicion that a Metro Manila cop killed Llamas following a traffic-related incident in Pasay City last week.

However, only policemen who resemble the cartographic sketch provided by the witnesses would be involved.

Catalan said this is being done to stop accusations of a cover-up by the police in defense of one of their own.

He explained that the kind of gun used in Pasay was the main reason a policeman is being eyed as the shooter.

Llamas was gunned down by a man armed with a 9-mm. pistol, the standard firearm of policemen.

One of the witnesses also claimed in his statement that he heard some bystanders identifying the suspect as a policeman.

"The use of the 9-mm. is the only reason that a member of the PNP is being suspected, but we can’t discount this possibility," Catalan said.

He pointed out that it would be a tedious process to go check all members of the NCRPO so he decided to just narrow it down on the basis of the artist’s sketch of the suspect.

Catalan also admitted that his investigators have encountered a dead end in the tracking of the previous owners of the motorcycle used by the gunman.

A verification conducted by the police with the Land Transportation Office revealed that the motorcycle with yellow plate number VM 2047 was registered under the name of a certain Cola M. Ditato.

The address used by Ditato in his registration was at Barangay Datu Esmael, a Muslim community in Dasmarinas, Cavite.

Investigation conducted by the Pasay Police operatives in the area revealed that the motorcycle went through four other owners after Ditato, the latest one being a certain Inuray Sultan.

All four owners of the motorcycle belong to the same community but none of them ever bothered to secure a deed of sale or transfer of registration.

Residents of the barangay also refused to cooperate with the investigators as all of them claimed that the four men no longer lived there.

Catalan denied that he identified Ditato as the suspect in the case as quoted in the news.

"I vehemently deny ever saying that. They are not suspects," Catalan said. – Marvin Sy