SWAT team commended for arrest of kidnap cops

Valenzuela City Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian commended yesterday members of the Valenzuela police Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team for the arrest of three suspected members of a kidnap-for-ransom (KFR) group, all policemen of the Northern Police District (NPD), last Friday.

This developed as Assistant City Prosecutor Roland Allan Juan recommended yesterday the filing of kidnapping, car theft and robbery charges. No bail was recommended for the kidnapping charge while a bail for P300,000 and P100,000 each for car theft and robbery was recommended for each of the suspects.

Chief Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil, NPD director, identified the suspects as PO2 Reynaldo Turla, 39; PO2 Godofredo Animos, 38; and PO1 Rodrigo Gadia, 32.

The three were positively identified by the victims at the police station even as the suspects’ two other companions managed to elude arrest.

Gatchalian, in simple rites, awarded the commendation to Superintendent Billy Beltran, city police chief, and SWAT team members PO3s Peter Soriano, Luisito de la Cruz, Rolando Balderas, Reynaldo Benedicto, Johnny Bueno, PO2s Villamor Baying, Ricardo Manzanares, Alberto Mendoza and Pedy Meneses.

The SWAT team, on board the black SWAT van, was on routine patrol when they spotted the suspects acting suspiciously in front of a bank on Paso de Blas, where the suspects had forced their captive Allan Ang to withdraw from an ATM.

The SWAT van was part of some 17 patrol cars and vans donated to the local police under Gatchalian’s program to build up and enhance its crime fighting capability. — Jerry Botial