CCTV footage shows the teenagers casually boarding the police car. Contributed photo
CABANATUAN CITY – Police are looking into the incident involving the arrest of three teenagers for alleged violation of curfew that resulted to the death of one and critical wounding of others at about 10:25 p.m. on Nov. 8.
This, after the three reportedly jumped from the police car along M. De Leon Ave., San Juan Accfa a few meters away from the police station.
City police chief Lt. Col. Julius Caezar Manucdoc requested that the lawmen’s name be withheld pending investigation but said they are now restricted at the police station.
Initial investigation showed the police on board mobile patrol No. 536 apprehended two brothers aged 17 and 18, and their 18-year-old niece along Maharlika Highway in Barangay Gen. Luna for violation of curfew.
CCTV footage showed they freely boarded at the back of mobile patrol while another male companion was left behind.
Laut Saripada, father of the two boys, said the three earlier attended the debut of a classmate in the adjacent village of DS Garcia but were invited by friends to visit the wake of another classmate’s mother.
“…[T]he subject three curfew violators suddenly jumped from the said mobile car causing injuries thereof,” police investigators said.
Manucdoc said the operatives have reached the police station unaware that the three were no longer in the vehicle.
Upon finding the three were lying down on the street, elements of the police called an ambulance that brought them to MV Gallego Cabanatuan City General Hospital, he said, where “unfortunately, one of them was declared dead upon arrival.”
Saripada said his elder son can already talk a bit but his granddaughter was still unconscious as of Thursday, Nov. 11.
On his son’s account, they boarded the patrol car on the policemen’s offer to drop them by their village since their residence is somewhere in between Gen. Luna and the police station based in Barangay Kap. Pepe here.
“Sabi raw nung mga pulis, sumakay na kayo at ihahatid na namin kayo sa San Juan Accfa,” Saripada said. “Ngayon pag tapat nila dito sa babaan, pumara raw sila. ‘Kuya kuya dito na lang po kami,’ e parang walang narinig daw yung mga pulis.”
When they again pleaded, one of the policemen allegedly said: “Magsitigil kayo kung hindi papatayin ko kayo.”
Manucdoc noted, on the other hand, it could not be easy for the teenagers and the police to talk to each other since there was a glass separator in between them.
Easily, Manucdoc admitted that not watching the youths at the back was one of the lapses the policemen might have committed.
