5 suspected carjackers shot dead

Five suspected car thieves clad in police jackets were killed in a gun battle with pursuing anti-carjacking agents in Quezon City early yesterday morning.

Reports said the suspects were shot dead as they were fleeing from agents of Task Force Limbas of the police Traffic Management Group (TMG) in a stolen Toyota Revo at around 3:30 a.m. on Belfast St., Barangay Pasong Putik in Fairview.

TMG director Chief Superintendent Errol Pan said the slain suspects might have been responsible for many carjacking cases in Metro Manila.

"We believe that this is one of the groups which victimizes motorists," Pan said. "In the guise of being police officers, these car thieves will flag down motorists but when their target pulls over, they will announce their criminal activities."

Pan went to the crime scene to get a first-hand account of the incident and reportedly to help protect forensic evidence.

As of press time, only one of the five slain suspects had been identified. Menardo Tuazon, a resident of Bocaue, Bulacan, was identified through his driver’s license.

Pan said they were verifying reports that two other suspects managed to escape.

Initial reports showed that the Task Force Limbas agents were on a routine patrol near the Quezon City Memorial Circle when they spotted a maroon-silver Toyota Revo with what appeared to be a mismatched license plate number.

The agents, who are trained to detect vehicle models and their corresponding plate numbers, radioed the TMG’s Vehicle Information Management System, which informed them that the Revo’s license plate VBX-410 actually belonged to a Mitsubishi Crosswind stolen from a certain Frederick Duller of Taguig City in June 2005.

With the information, the TMG operatives called for backup and tailed the suspects all the way to Fairview. Apparently sensing that they were being tailed, the suspects reportedly fired at the policemen, prompting the latter to fire back and killing the suspects on the spot.

The lawmen suffered no casualties but they said their patrol car got hit many times during the shootout. Taken from the slain suspects were a 9mm pistol, three caliber .45 pistols, one grenade, a shotgun, and black police jackets.

The lawmen also recovered several license plates from stolen vehicles.

One of the plates, XRX-739, was reportedly for a Revo stolen on March 7 last year. Another seized plate, ZAT-876, also belonged to a Revo taken in Binondo in July 2006.

Police also gathered that the Toyota Revo that was used by the suspects was stolen while parked in Cainta, Rizal a few months ago. The vehicle was registered to a certain Elena Rodriguez.

Based on recorded carnapping cases, the suspects were usually disguised as policemen. In some cases, they would deliberately sideswipe or bump their target vehicles to force their drivers to come out. Stolen vehicles, police said, were initially taken to Bocaue in Bulacan. If the vehicles had to be moved, they were loaded into container vans. It was not clear if the police had knowledge of the exact place in Bocaue where the stolen vehicles were brought.

Pan said the deaths of the suspects indicated that his unit’s campaign against car thieves is on the right track.

"We have managed to bring down carnapping incidents," Pan said. He said there were 2,004 carnapping cases in 2006, down from 2,872 in 2002.

He said that in the first quarter of this year, there were 243 cases reported as against the 449 reported in the same period last year.

"TMG managed to reduce the daily incidents of car theft from 4.04 vehicles stolen to an average of 2.7 a day," Pan added. "The intensified campaign against carnapping also led to the arrest of 57 suspects and the recovery of 112 vehicles during the first three months of the year." — with Marijoe Yu, Jan Camille Canivel