Neophyte cop killed in Zamboanga del Sur attack

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A young policeman, admired by colleagues for his extensive involvement in high-profile law-enforcement operations, was killed in an attack at a buy stretch of a highway in Barangay Tickwas in Dumalinao, Zamboanga del Sur on Wednesday afternoon, July 1.

Officials of the Dumalinao Municipal Police Station and local executives told reporters on Thursday that Patrolman Armejo Jornadal, of the 2nd Zamboanga del Sur Provincial Mobile Force Company, died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the attack.

Municipal officials and police investigators who responded to the incident said Jornadal was riding his motorcycle, on his way to Guipos town in Zamboanga del Sur, when he was shot repeatedly with a pistol by one of two men riding a motorcycle together, trailing behind, at a stretch of a highway in Purok Lapu-Lapu in Barangay Tickwas, killing him immediately.

Companions of Jornadal in their unit and his relatives were quoted in radio reports on Thursday as saying that he was admired for his involvement in recent successful anti-cigarette smuggling and narcotics entrapment operations in different towns in Zamboanga del Sur.

The assailants of Jornadal took his sling bag and service pistol before they motored away, leaving him dead, sprawled at one side of the highway.

Officials of the Police Regional Office 9 told reporters on Thursday that local executives, investigators from the Dumalinao police force and intelligence operatives from different PRO-9 units in Zamboanga del Sur are cooperating in identifying the two motorists behind what is for them a premeditated murder of Jornadal.