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[av_heading heading=’4 cops face suspension for ‘serious neglect’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MERIANNE GRACE EREÑETA
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ILOILO City – Four police officers were found administratively liable for “serious neglect of duty.” The National Police Commission (Napolcom) en banc recommended their 60-day suspension.
Police Officers 2 Alberto Espinosa, Joursy Orrica and Jose Franklin Sencil, and Police Officer 1 Nelwer Delaon allegedly failed to have a man arrested in a commotion examined for his head injury.
Spouses Ariel and Ma. Socorro Bigcas lodged an administrative complaint against the officers after the incident involving their nephew, Dave Gabuan, on May 17, 2011, Napolcom 6 pre-charge investigator Allen Camiring told Panay News.
Chief Inspector Efren Lozada, Police Station 1 chief at the time, was included in the complaint but exonerated.
Espinosa and Delaon were still with the Iloilo City Police Office, while Orrica and Sencil were with the Iloilo Police Provincial Office.
Because of the officers’ negligence, Gabuan was hospitalized and later fell into a coma, the Bigcases claimed.
Gabuan was caught in a commotion during a birthday party of Alvin Gonzaga on Muelle Loney-Aduana streets, the Napolcom resolution stated.
Vangie Benedicto told Espinosa and Delaon the commotion started when De la Paz pulled her T-shirt. Gabuan fell in the middle of the fight, prompting De la Paz to carry him, but both were drunk and fell on the pavement.
Espinosa and Delaon called the Iloilo City Emergency Response (ICER) team, which found a small wound on the left side of Gabuan’s head, near the ear. The ICER called it a “minor injury.”
The officers took Benedicto and De la Paz at Police Station 1. Benedicto told the station De la Paz maltreated her. The drunken Gabuan was also taken to the station, upon the ICER’s advice, so he could sleep and get some rest.
Sencil and Orrica were the investigators on duty at the time. They were there when the ICER team checked Gabuan and the others.
Lozada said he was not on duty at the time, only his deputy chief, Inspector Cyril Octavio. When he arrived at the station 8 a.m. the next day, he said he found Gabuan on a bamboo chair, vomiting.
He ordered his men to call Gabuan’s family. The man was later taken to the Western Visayas Medical Center in Mandurriao district.
Dr. Eldy C. Pragos found Gabuan to have a “severe head injury secondary to gunshot wound left occipital,” the Napolcom resolution stated.
According to Napolcom, the officers did not bring Gabuan to the hospital, relied only on the findings of the ICER team, and did not acknowledge that the man was a shooting victim.
“It is negligence…not to bring the victim (Gabuan) to the hospital so his wound can be checked by a medical expert,” the resolution read.
Camiring said the officers may still file a motion for reconsideration. “If their motion gets rejected, we will implement the order (suspension),” he said./PN
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