Cops tracking down Leyte jail escapees
MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine National Police (PNP) has dispatched tracker teams to go after detainees who escaped from the Leyte provincial jail at the height of Super Typhoon Yolanda, a police official said yesterday.
Deputy Director General Felipe Rojas Jr., PNP deputy chief for operations, said several police teams are presently scouring Tacloban City and neighboring towns for 103 inmates who have remained missing since the typhoon hit the province last Nov. 8.
Rojas said two teams from the Special Action Force and several operatives from the local and regional police are helping provincial guards in re-arresting the inmates, who bolted the provincial jail when floodwaters submerged their detention cells.
“We have coordinated with the provincial guards who provided us with information, data and pictures of the missing inmates. Our tracker teams are now actively hunting them down,†Rojas said.
According to jail warden Joseph Nuñez, the provincial jail housed 676 inmates before Yolanda struck.
Only 559 of the inmates remained after the typhoon, 14 of them giving themselves up days later.
Nuñez also deployed prison guards to track down the missing inmates.
He said the inmates at the provincial jail face charges ranging from burglary and drug dealing to rape and murder.
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