5.56-cal bullet jackets found in slain Los Baños mayor, says PNP
MANILA, Philippines — The investigation into the killing of Los Baños, Laguna Mayor Caesar Perez found that the latter was shot three times with a 5.56-cal firearm, though no match for the bullet jackets has been found, the national police disclosed Monday.
At a press briefing Monday morning, Police Brig. Gen. Steve Ludan, director of the PNP Crime Laboratory, said that the evidence recovered at the crime scene had been encoded in the agency's firearm identification database, though no match has been found yet as of Thursday, December 10.
A ballistics examination conducted on the metal fragments collected both at the crime scene and in the cadaver, he said, also showed that the bullet jackets were fired from a 5.56 caliber firearm, while a separate autopsy report suggested that the mayor died from gunshot wounds to the head, trunk, and right shoulder.
According to Ludan, the bullet's fragmented condition rendered investigators unable to tell if they came from the same weapon.
To recall, Perez was shot at the Los Baños Municipal Hall in Barangay Timugan on December 3 by an unidentified gunman who fled in a white van. The mayor was pronounced dead on arrival by attending physicians at the Health Serv Medical Hospital.
The shooting of the mayor, an earlier inclusion in President Rodrigo Duterte's publicized narco-list, came hours after the chief executive at a speech in Cavite urged cops to "shoot first" and not worry about human rights. Perez's family insists he was not involved in illegal drugs.
Investigators are still trying to determine whether or not the attack was politically motivated.
The slain mayor's remains were laid to rest over the weekend at a burial that attracted thousands according to a report on GMA News. — Franco Luna
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