Toughies in wake shooting were after rivals

The group of neighborhood toughies who shot dead a teenage girl and injured two others Thursday night in Quezon City were going after a member of a rival gang when they went amuck at the wake of the victims’ grandmother, police said yesterday.

Superintendent Franklin Moises Mabanag, chief of the Quezon City Police District-Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, said Silver An Dinzay and her two cousins were hit because the suspects used improvised shotguns, which fire “nine pellets (bullets) in a single shot... These bullets spread when they were fired.”

“It appeared that one of those at the wake was a member of a rival gang and he was the target of the suspects,” he said.

Dinzay, 17, died from a bullet wound in the chest while her cousins, Sherilyn Candelario and Jennifer Belleza, both suffered a gunshot wound in the torso. As of yesterday morning, Candelario and Belleza were already in stable condition, Mabanag said.

The suspects were identified as Jayson Castañeda, Frederick Chavez, Raymond Sagun, Efren Ramilo and three other men identified only as Jerome, Omar and Atan.

Castañeda and Ramilo were arrested during follow-up operations Friday while the other five suspects remain at large. According to Mabanag, Castañeda and Ramilo were scheduled to be charged yesterday afternoon with murder.

Chavez and Sagun reportedly both have standing arrest warrants for robbery and homicide. – Reinir Padua