3 more drug suspects gunned down

MANILA, Philippines - Three suspected drug pushers and users were gunned down in Pasig, Navotas and Marikina over the past two days.

At around 5:25 p.m. on Friday, police officers from the Eastern Police District’s anti-drug unit were about to serve a search warrant on Melvin Mendoza at his house on Dela Paz street in Barangay San Roque when he allegedly resisted.

Police officers said they shot Mendoza when he reportedly tried to shoot them with a .38 caliber revolver. He died at the scene. 

Mendoza’s brothers Marlon and Marvin were also arrested.

Meanwhile, suspected drug pusher Bryan Benzon was killed in an alleged shootout with police officers from the Navotas Police Community Precinct 4 near his house in Kaunlaran Village just before 11 p.m. Thursday.

A .38 caliber revolver, two fired shells, three sachets said to contain shabu and drug paraphernalia were recovered from Benzon, who was in the drug watchlist of Barangay North Bay Boulevard South.

In Pasig City, Cornelio Castillo was shot dead by four unidentified men who barged into his home along J.B. Miguel street in Barangay Bambang at around 3 a.m. yesterday. 

The victim’s sister, Myla Avegensa, told police she heard a man calling her brother’s nickname, Ompong, prior to the attack.

Avegensa then heard successive gunshots from her brother’s house and saw two men run out of her brother’s house while two others waited outside on two motorcycles.

Investigators recovered two slugs and various drug paraphernalia at the crime scene.  

Police said Castillo’s housemate, Vincent Fernandez, 25, was hit by a stray bullet and was rushed to the Rizal Medical Center for emergency treatment. He is still under observation.

According to the Pasig police, Castillo was reportedly a known drug peddler in Barangay Bambang and was on the barangay drug watchlist.