QCPD station chief shot dead

Police investigators are working double-time to resolve the death of a Quezon City Police District (QCPD) station commander who died of a gunshot wound Saturday night.

Superintendent Franklin Mabanag, chief of the QCPD-Criminal Investigation Unit (CIU), identified the fatality as Superintendent Jose Garcia, commander of QCPD Project 4 station and a resident of Barangay Pasong Tamo in Tandang Sora.

Investigators found that Garcia’s son, Jericho, claimed to have heard a shot fired shortly after his father went out of the room around 11 p.m. Jericho rushed to their backyard and saw his father slumped on the ground.

“He was found in front of the grotto that he himself made,” Mabanag told The STAR.

Citing an initial report from the QCPD’s crime scene investigators, Mabanag said Garcia sustained a fatal gunshot wound between his heart and armpit.

Although police said his death could be job-related, they are looking into the possibility that the wound could have been self-inflicted. Mabanag said Garcia seemed to have a family problem.

“If it is self-inflicted, it should have been a contact shot… but the report from SOCO showed it was not a contact shot,” Mabanag said.

“The SOCO report also indicated that the smudging suggests that the gun was not directly pointed to that part of the body, meaning the nozzle of the gun was far from the body of the victim,” he added.

Garcia, a graduate of the Philippine National Police Academy in 1984, was pronounced dead upon arrival at the Malvar General Hospital.

Garcia was said to have began his career in the police force as a patrolman in 1980.