2 rob suspects killed in QC

Two robbery suspects were killed during a shootout with policemen in Quezon City Monday night after the armed men hijacked a taxicab and used the vehicle to rob a passenger.

Taxi driver Rodolfo Lorredo, 64, “was found blindfolded and completely hogtied with packing tape inside the cab’s compartment,” said Superintendent Franklin Moises Mabanag, chief of the Quezon City Police District-Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (QCPD-CIDU).

Lorredo, whose face was completely covered with packing tape, was rescued after he repeatedly pounded the walls of the compartment after the gunbattle.

The suspects were still un­identified, but one of them had a tattoo indicating he was a member of the Sigue-Sigue Sputnik Gang, Mabanag said.

QCPD-CIDU policemen on patrol, led by Superintendent Antonio Yarra, spotted the vehicle in Barangay Old Capitol at around 10:30 p.m. after an alarm was flashed to different units about robbers in a white Toyota Corolla.

Upon seeing the taxicab, the policemen tailed the vehicle but when they were about to flag it down, the suspects opened fire, resulting in a gunbattle.

Mabanag estimated that the suspects, each armed with a .38 caliber revolver, were aged between 25 to 35 years old.

The police recovered from the suspects a wallet owned by passenger Cathy Lumio, Lorredo’s wallet and a cellular phone.

Lorredo said the suspects robbed him of his personal money worth P570 and earnings worth P1,300.

Lorredo said he was flagged down by three men in a subdivision in Barangay Culiat at around 8:30 p.m.

After the shootout, Lumio appeared at the scene and said she boarded the taxi near a mall along North EDSA. Upon reaching Congressional Avenue, the driver – not Lorredo – stopped and two other suspects boarded the taxi, robbed Lumio, and dropped her off along Anonas Road.

Yarra said they were still locating the third suspect, whom he described to be the one acting as a “spotter” for potential victims that the robbers could victimize using the taxicab.