JOINT PROBE INTO FATAL SHOOT-OUT

Quezon city clash involved law enforcers from two agencies on different operations

AJOINT probe is being conducted into a shootout between the police and drug enforcement agents that left four people dead at a mall in Quezon city.

According to the Philstar.net portal, the investigation into the shooting, claimed by both sides to be legitimate operations, will be carried out by the Philippine National Police (PNP) Board of Inquiry together with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).

The shoot-out on Wednesday lasted more than an hour and left two Quezon City Police Department (QCPD) members, one PDEA operative and an informant dead.

PNP chief General Debold Sinas and PDEA director general Wilkins Villanueva, in the joint statement, assured that those responsible will face the full force of the law.

“We can assure our people that there will be criminal and administrative charges to be filed against those individuals found to have violated the laws, rules and regulations,” they said.

The Senate, House of Representatives and the National Bureau of Investigation are also looking at the shoot-out closely.

Early investigations revealed that the PDEA Special Enforcement Service and the QCPD District Special Operations Unit (DSOU) were involved in their respective operations and apparently had different targets.

For now, 10 DSOU officers and seven from PDEA, who were directly involved in the shoot-out, have been placed under restrictive custody while the investigation is ongoing.

Sinas said they placed the policemen under restrictive custody at the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, which was also tasked to probe the incident on the part of the PNP.

“They are collating the evidence and data. As of now, we could not see the entire picture of what really happened.”

Sinas stressed that it would be premature to release other information as it could only result in a misunderstanding between the PDEA and the PNP.

“We could not give our side because if we’d do that, it would only pit us against one another.”

Villanueva said it may be early to say that the law enforcers got played by drug rings but they were not discounting the possibility, noting that the two agencies had different targets.

The investigation should show how members of the two agencies ended up in the same place and shooting at each other, he said.

“Both of them (PDEA and DSOU) are thinking they are doing a legitimate operation that’s why the shoot-out lasted that long,” Villanueva added.