| File Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Police have started to secure recordings from security cameras that were mounted close to the area where former Inayawan tanod (village watchmen) Jimmy Tabura was killed on Saturday, January 2.
Police Major Jose Angelo Acupinpin, chief of Pardo Police Station, said they are using the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage to identify Tabura’s killer.
“We are yet to identity of the gunman behind the killing but we have already collected several CCTV footages near the crime scene,” said Acupinpin in Cebuano.
The 50-year-old Tabura, who worked as a security guard for a pawnshop in Cebu City after he left his post as barangay tanod, was shot on the face past 1 p.m. on Saturday while he was in Upper Inayawan in Barangay Inayawan. He died while being treated at the hospital.
Police said that Tabura’s gunman fled the crime scene on board a motorcycle.
READ MORE: Hot pursuit vs. suspects behind killing of former tanod in Inayawan
Tabura’s 29-year-old son mentioned to the police that his father had an earlier misunderstanding with a certain Judy Ationg.
“The son shared with us that he (Ationg) and his father had a misunderstanding before. His father, a security guard, allegedly reprimanded him (Ationg) one time while in the pawnshop where he worked,” said Acupinpin.
Ationg already visited the Pardo Police Station on Saturday to deny any involvement in the crime and to tell the police that he was playing billiards when it happened.
Quoting the outcome of their follow up investigation, Acupinpin said that Ationg’s profile did not match that of the gunman. But the Pardo police chief did not elaborate so as not to jeopardize their ongoing hot pursuit operation.
“We also compared him (Ationg) and the gunman based on the CCTV videos that we obtained. He (Ationg) did not fit the profile (of the gunman), based on what we saw from the CCTV footage,” Acupinpin said.
A representative of the Ationg family also sent CDN Digital a copy of CCTV footage from the billiards hall where Ationg was when the crime happened on Saturday afternoon to prove his innocence. / dcb