SPECIAL PROBERS: Task force mulled for lawyer slay investigation

Superintendent Dante Tayco, Roxas City police chief, recommends the creation of a special group of police officers that will investigate the death of lawyer Edeljulio Romero.

BY GLENN BEUP and RUBY SILUBRICO

ROXAS City – Police wanted to form a “special investigation task force” that will look into the fatal shooting of Edeljulio Romero, a lawyer of slain Iloilo City drug lord Melvin Odicta Sr. They were still trying to find out who committed the crime and why.

Romero, known for handling high-profile drug cases, was gunned down at an eatery in Barangay Culasi here on Friday.

Investigators remained clueless with regard to the motive, said Superintendent Dante Tayco, Roxas City police chief.

“I already submitted to the Capiz police provincial director, Senior Superintendent Canilo Fuentes, a recommendation for the creation of an SITF (special investigation task force),” Tayco told Panay News.

Tayco said they also hoped to get more information from Romero’s wife, Iris Tan.

Tan was currently in the custody of the Roxas City police.

“She requested for it,” said Tayco. “She doesn’t feel safe anymore.”

At the time of the shooting at the carinderia, Romero’s wife was buying roll-on, roll-off ship tickets for the two of them at a nearby 2Go vessel ticketing outlet, police investigation showed.

An armed man disembarked from a gray sport utility vehicle and shot the back of Romero’s head. The gunman then left on board the same vehicle.

Investigators obtained footage from a closed-circuit television camera installed near the crime scene but it was not clear enough for them to make out the faces of the gunman and two lookouts, Tayco said.

“We already requested IT (information technology) experts from the Police Regional Office 6 to help us,” he said.

Iris Tan has not yet given the police investigators any statement as of this writing, Tayco said.

Relatives of her husband’s client, Stephen Teves, brought her food at the Roxas City police station, this was learned.

A day before he was killed, Romero attended a court hearing of the drug suspect Teves at the Roxas City Hall of Justice.

From what the police have seen on the security camera footage, one of the suspects was clad in a blue T-shirt – they believed this was the gunman – while two others were wearing white T-shirts, their faces covered with cloth.

All three were then seen rushing toward an SUV, police said.

Romero sustained a gunshot wound on the head, the bullet exiting above his nose. He was pronounced “dead on arrival” at the Roxas Memorial Provincial Hospital on Arnaldo Boulevard here.

“I think Romero knew he was being tailed,” Tayco said.

The lawyer was wearing a bulletproof vest. Minutes before he was shot, he removed it and placed it next to him, Tayco said, citing witnesses. “He failed to notice the suspects because he was talking to other customers.”

The bulletproof vest and two empty shells of a 9mm pistol were recovered from the crime scene.

Meanwhile Senior Superintendent Martin Defensor, director of the Iloilo City Police Office, confirmed that Romero was high above their list of drug suspects.

The lawyer was a “high-value target level 3” in their antidrug campaign, said Defensor. “But we could not operate against him (Romero) because he was not staying [in Iloilo City]. He stayed in Quezon City.”

The 50-year-old Romero was one of the lawyers of Odicta, who was killed at the jetty port in Barangay Caticlan, Malay, Aklan on Aug. 29, 2016.

A resident of Barangay South San Jose, Molo district in Iloilo City, Romero have been staying with his wife in Quezon City for more than a year now. They were supposed to head back to Quezon at the time he was shot./PN

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