Police officer shot dead in Camarines Sur

A senior police officer who heads a police task force investigating a pyramid scam was gunned down by an unknown assailant at his own resort in Pili, Camarines Sur before dawn yesterday.

Superintendent Vicente Mendenilla died before reaching a local hospital in Naga City from a gunshot wound in the stomach and thigh.

Mendenilla was assigned at the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) at Camp Crame and head of the CIDG’s Task Force Anti-Pyramiding Scam, a multi-level financial investment scheme that duped thousands of people, mostly soldiers and policemen.

Chief Superintendent Ricardo Padilla, Bicol police regional director, said Mendenilla was visiting his resort which is still under construction in Barangay La Purisima, Pili town when shot dead at about 4:30 a.m.

Padilla said the local police have strong reasons to believe that Mendenilla’s unnamed lady companion could be the assassin who escaped after the incident.

"I ordered for a manhunt. As it turned out, she’s the only companion of Mendenilla when the crime happened. So, she is a suspect," Padilla said.

He added that Mendenilla’s driver, who is a relative, told probers that he drove the two to the unfinished resort.

However, the driver failed to get the woman’s name. He told probers that he was comfortable with the woman because he often saw in her the company the fallen officer.

"She was seen often in the company of Col. Mendenilla," Padilla said.

Mendenilla arrived in Pili at about 8 p.m. last Friday to see for himself the progress of an ongoing construction of his resort.

According to Camarines Sur police provincial director Senior Superintendent Romeo Mapalu, laborers were awakened from their sleep by the gunfire and when they went out to see what happened, they saw the bloodied police officer.

Mendenilla’s body was taken to police regional crime laboratory at Camp Ola, for autopsy.