Supt. Jason Villamater, Talisay City Police Station chief, inspects the firearms recovered from arrested suspects in the strafing incident at the Talisay City jail.
CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON
IT started with an attempted drive-by strafing of the Talisay City Jail in Barangay Maghaway in Talisay City and ended with four men wounded in shootouts with police, including a man who claimed to be a civilian, and the arrest of three others including a minor.
Supt. Jason Villamater, Talisay City police chief, said it started with the shootout at 2:30 a.m. on Friday between jail guards and two armed men on a motorcycle cruising along the Talisay City Jail.
Villamater said the assailants turned out to be suspects Troy Briones of Barangay Lagtang, Talisay City, and Arjan Ababon of Barangay Lawaan 3, who were wounded in the shootout.
Villamater said that the two suspects, however, managed to escape from Barangay Maghaway, and they were arrested after hospitals in Talisay and Cebu City informed them of two men wounded in shooting incidents were treated there.
However, before the police were informed of the suspects being at the hospitals, a manhunt operation was conducted.
This led to another shootout with a murder suspect, whom Talisay police suspected to be one of those who attacked the jail, at Sitio Kawatan Mananga 2 in Barangay Tabunok.
Villamater said they were about to arrest Ricky Tan when he allegedly pulled out a gun and shot it out with the police officers.
He said that Tan, who went inside one of the shanties, was hit in the stomach.
Another man, who claimed to be a bystander, said he was slightly wounded on the side of the body during the shootout.
Villamater said the wound was just a flesh wound and they were checking if the man, William Alendajao, was really who he claimed to be.
He was, however, released by police later.
During the manhunt operation, police also arrested Tan’s alleged cohorts: Jeodfrey Tabay, 22, of Sitio Kasagingan, Barangay Lawaan 3, and Cesar Taac Taac, 25, of the same barangay.
A 17-year-old boy was also taken into custody or rescued by police.
Police also confiscated a KG9 pistol, a Magnum 22 revolver and a .38 revolver from Tan.
Villamater said that Briones, who had a shoulder wound, was treated at the Talisay District Hospital where he was arrested while Arjan was later arrested at the Miller Hospital, where he sought treatment for his facial wound.
The three wounded suspects were later transferred to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.
Villamater said he believed that the strafing incidents at the Talisay City Jail had been solved with the arrest of Ababon and Briones.
He said that the BJMP were looking into the possibility of a man linked to drugs, who was transferred to another jail facility in Cebu to separate from his group inside the Talisay jail, as among the cause of the strafings.
Supt. Gil Enopia, Talisay City Jail warden, told Cebu Daily News in an interview that they were ready for the attack after the jail’s gate had been shot at on three occasions by motorcycle-riding assailants.
Enopia said they put sand bags at Gate 1 of the jail and stationed jail guards there on the lookout for the attackers.
So when the two men were seen on the security cameras of the jail, the jail guards were ready for them.
Enopia said they would file frustrated murder charges against Ababon and Briones while police would file illegal possession of firearms charges against the two suspects.
Villamater said they would also file a frustrated murder case and illegal possession of firearms against Tan.
He said that that would be on top of the cases Tan are facing, which are murder and theft cases.