Scavenger shot dead

CEBU, Philippines – A 15-year-old boy who foraged exploitable things from dump sites for a living was shot to death while sleeping with four other scavengers inside a parked passenger multicab yesterday dawn in barangay Gun-ob, Lapu-Lapu City.

Jessie Aton, 15, of barangay Marigondon was already dead when his fellow scavengers woke up at around 4 a.m. yesterday dawn.

The police said Aton and his friends had asked permission from jeepney driver Efren Montellano, 54, for the use of his multicab for the night.

Montellano said Aton was bloodied and dead when scavenger Kenneth Tanuto, 18, of barangay Gun-ob, tried to rouse him that morning thinking he was sleeping.

Montellano then asked the boys to take Aton out of his multicab.

Tanuto and two other boys, aged 12 and 16, helped carry Aton out of the jeepney and put him down on the roadside.

A passerby reported the incident to a police station 60 meters from the crime scene.

Fellow scavengers said they didn’t hear any gunshot fired.

However, Tanuto said another scavenger who slept in a makeshift house near the multicab said he heard a single burst of gunfire and saw a man fleeing on a motorcycle.

Police found a .45 caliber empty shell at the crime scene.

Aton sustained a gunshot wound on the forehead.

Police believed the gunman used a silencer.

Bystanders in the area had alleged Aton was a thief.  – THE FREEMAN