By LITO RULONA
and NITZ ARANCON
Correspondents
A POLICE station commander and his subordinates are in hot water over their failure to respond while a broad daylight robbery was being staged near a police outpost on CM Recto Ave. at around 2 pm on Wednesday.
Supt. Danildo Tumanda, Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (Cocpo) chief for administration, said the attention of Chief Insp. Ariel Phillip Pontillas, Agora police station chief, and two of his police officers, were called.
This came about after a trader, who requested anonymity for security reasons, was robbed a spitting distance from a police outpost by at least nine armed people in three motorcycles. The robbers reportedly fled with some P400 thousand in cash taken from the woman who was in her car near malls.
The victim said she had expected to receive protection from a nearby police outpost when she noticed she was being followed but there was no police officer around.
Witnesses said the suspects were were armed, and staged the robbery in less than a minute.
Tumanda said city police director Senior Supt. Faro Antonio Olaguera ordered an investigation, and an operation to catch the robbers.
Olaguera said a “tracker team” was created by him on orders of Mayor Oscar Moreno. The team is headed by Supt. Erwin Menesis, chief of the Intelligence Branch pf Cocpo.
He also revealed plans to give a cash reward to anyone who could provide information that would lead to the arrest of the robbers.
“We raised some modest cash reward for the quick solution of this,” Olaguera said.
Pontillas said the two officers assigned in the area were patroling near the Capitol University (CU) when the robbery took place. The other members of his station, he said, were out on a buy-bust operation in Lapasan.
He said he was investigating his men.
“I take full responsibility. I am willing to relieve them kung nay pagkulang ang kapolisan,” he said.
Pontillas said police identified two suspects with the help of the victim and witnesses.
Olaguera, meanwhile, revealed that a witness was able to catch the robbery on video, and that a suspect has been identified through it.
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