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Is this another drug-related vigilante killing? ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY RUBY P. SILUBRICO
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ILOILO City – Two motorcycle-riding gunmen riddled with bullets a drug pushing suspect in Barangay Gustilo, La Paz district.
Wensher Caravana, 20, died while being treated for multiple gunshot wounds at the West Visayas State University Medical Center on Wednesday night. He was allegedly a former police “asset.”
The shooting happened around 7:30 p.m. Caravana was sitting on a bench with two other friends.
According to Senior Inspector Rey Sumagaysay, La Paz police chief, two bonnet-wearing men on a motorcycle stopped in front of the three friends. The back rider who was wearing a bonnet peppered Caravana with bullets.
“Caravana was really the target. His two companions were not harmed,” said Sumagaysay.
The men hurriedly left after shooting Caravana.
Responding policemen recovered from the crime scene five empty shells of a .9mm pistol.
Sumagaysay believed the shooting was drug-related.
“Caravana used to get shabu from one group but later moved to another supplier. Basi isa ka drug group ang nagtira sa iya,” Sumagaysay told Panay News.
There are two Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-identified drug groups in the city – the Odicta group and Prevendido groups.
The police chief said Caravana was a former police “asset” of the Iloilo City Police Office and that the victim’s father was also a drug suspect.
With the gunmen’s identities unknown, Caravana’s case could end up like several other recent unsolved Iloilo killings linked to illegal drugs and other criminal activities. For example, the suspected leader of the Odicta drug group, Melvin “Boyet” Odicta Sr., was gunned down with wife Meriam in Malay, Aklan just this Aug. 29. As of this writing, the killers remained unidentified.
Vigilante-style killings in Iloilo were not new although the police never concluded that vigilante groups operated in the metropolis.
On July 29, a tattooed man was found dead in Barangay Baybay, San Joaquin, Iloilo. Wanted for a string of criminal cases, George Gallaza Jr. of General Hughes Street, Iloilo City had two standing arrest warrants for theft but he had been previously charged, too, for robbery and attempted robbery.
Gallaza appeared to have died of suffocation. His killers completely wrapped his face and head with packaging tape, preventing him from breathing.
On June 4, two suspected criminals were riddled with bullets. Drug suspect Lou Pacto, 33, was found dead in Barangay San Jose, Arevalo district.
A resident of Barangay Sooc also in Arevalo, Pacto died of multiple gunshot wounds on the head and body.
His hands were bound together with packing taping. His head was also wrapped with the tape.
An hour after Pacto was found dead, the body of 36-year-old Sherwin Taasan was recovered in Barangay San Vicente Pulo, Leganes, Iloilo.
A resident of Barangay Rizal Pala-pala, Iloilo City, Taasan was a suspected petty street criminal linked to several cases of snatching and pocket slashing.
He had two gunshot wounds on the head, two more on the right shoulder and one on the chest./PN
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