Mandaluyong cop shot dead by five robbers

Mandaluyong City policemen arrested yesterday five notorious robbers hours after they shot a fellow officer dead and robbed him of his pistol and a cellular phone.

An investigation showed that PO3 John-John Justo, 32, who was in plainclothes, boarded a passenger jeepney plying a Boni-Nueve de Pebrero route at 9:15 a.m. yesterday.

Justo, assigned at a police community precinct at Crossing, was on his way to report to the Mandaluyong City police headquarters.

Superintendent Ericson Velasquez, Mandaluyong City police chief, said the five suspects were already aboard the jeepney when the police officer got on. However, Justo later got off upon reaching Pleasant Hills after sensing that the five were armed.

But the five suspects followed Justo and two of them opened fire at him at close range without a word. Justo sustained gunshot wounds in the head and chest. He died on the spot.

The suspects took Justo’s 9-mm pistol and cellular phone and commandeered a Toyota Feroza driven by Manuel Sanchez, who was initially identified as a special investigator of the National Bureau of Investigation.

The suspects abandoned the vehicle a few blocks later and took separate tricycles to make their escape.

But an angry crowd ran after one of the tricycles and two suspects aboard opened fire, hitting three bystanders, including a three-year-old child.

Responding policemen arrived and arrested Victor Valdez, 24, and Randy Florentino, 28.

Their cohorts — Chito Catbagan, 24, and Jobert Dumlao, 23 — were arrested hours later at their hideout in nearby Barangay Addition Hills. Three guns, including Justo’s, and his cellular phone were found. The fifth, Ramonet Moralidad, 44, was trying to cross towards Pasig City at Barangay Barangka when cornered by another police team.

Relatives of the five suspects rushed to the local police station amid fears that they would be summarily executed to avenge Justo, a nephew of a Mandaluyong City police official.

Velasquez said the suspects admitted shooting Justo but claimed they didn’t know he was a police officer.

The five told police during questioning that they were looking for a pawnshop or a gasoline station to rob when Justo got on the jeepney. They shot Justo because he realized that they were armed.

Velasquez said a number of holdup victims have positively identified Valdez and Florentino as among those who robbed them at gunpoint in the past few days.

"These people are really notorious so I am calling on other holdup victims to come down here to the station so they can be positively identified, pressed with additional charges and they will rot in jail," he said.

Police are filing murder charges for killing Justo.