Soldier guns down 2 Caloocan cops

MANILA, Philippines - A military man shot dead two cops and wounded a passing jeepney driver early Tuesday night at the Bonifacio Circle in Monumento, Caloocan City.

Senior Superintendent William Macavinta, city police chief, identified the suspect as Aristoter Calagui, 44, resident of 1301 Naval St., San Roque, Navotas.

Investigators found an ID card from the suspect showing he was a Master Sergeant and attached to the AFP intelligence service. They said a Sgt. Edwin Daez of the ISAFP came to the station yesterday to check Calagui’s identity. At presstime, police were still verifying the suspect’s true identity.

Calagui was arrested by pursuing cops as he fled from the crime scene.

Calagui was locked up yesterday at the local police detention cell for the alleged shooting of PO3 Joel Belarmino, 46, and PO1 Victor Mondejar, 27, both assigned at the Caloocan City police Sub-Station 1 mobile patrol unit.

Cezar Ejemplo, 49, jeepney driver, of Paradise Village, Tonsuya, Malabon, was hit by stray bullets twice in the abdomen as he drove past the police multicab during the shooting. Ejemplo was taken to the nearby MCU Hospital for treatment and is still confined there.

Calagui refused to talk to reporters and tried to hide his face, plastered with gauze bandage, when interviewed in his cell. The suspect was mauled by bystanders after fleeing the crime scene before he was turned over to pursuing colleagues of the slain officers.

Night duty officers

SPO3 Edgardo Esguerra, officer-on-case, said the slain cops, with other night duty officers, were at the Bonifacio Monument Circle in Monumento for a “daily roll-call” or checking of attendance, when they saw a quarreling couple at around 7:20 p.m. The woman, with her face swollen, approached the cops and asked for their assistance while the man walked briskly ahead of her. The battered woman, later identified as Christine Napolis, told the police that the suspect threatened to kill her once they return to their house in Pasig City.

The cops accosted Calagui, who initially resisted by telling them that he is a military officer and that he was only having “a simple misunderstanding with his wife.”

But the cops persuaded Calagui to go with them at the police station to settle their problem without disarming the suspect of his .45 caliber pistol.

But while on the way to the police station aboard a mobile car (SHU 782) driven by Belarmino with the couple guarded by Mondejar at the back, Calagui suddenly pulled his pistol and fired at Mondejar hitting him in the body. Mondejar fell from their vehicle and Calagui fired another shot at him.

Belarmino was also shot while about to leave the vehicle.

Esguerra, told The STAR the shooting occurred at around 7:20 pm Tuesday.

Calagui and his live-in partner Napolis, were spotted by the officers while having a spat. The couple reportedly just came from Calagui’s birthday party in Navotas and were on their way home to Taguig.

Mondejar left a young wife who had just delivered their first child sometime last month, fellow officers told The STAR.

Belarmino is survived by his wife Julie, 40, who just arrived yesterday from Masbate, and seven children (six girls and one boy) aged 16 to three years old.

Additionaly, the Navy said the alleged Marine who shot two of his police escorts dead in Caloocan City yesterday was not in their roster following verifications made.

Navy spokesman Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo said in a statement that based on their findings, there is no one that goes by the name Master Sgt. Aristotel Calagui and that the identification card shown by the suspect in a footage could be spurious.

“Per our query with police investigators, the Armed Forces of the Philippines serial number reflected in his ID belongs to one Marine Ernesto Calague who has been dishonorably discharged from the military service since 1994 for going on absent without official leave,” he said.

Arevalo added that the ID, issued purportedly in 2005, which was shown by the suspect is also dubious because the issuing authority has already retired from the military service since 2004.

The spokesman said their records would be made available to the police to help them in their investigation.    – With James Mananghaya