Loot out of hospital; may lose police escorts

Daanbantayan Mayor Vicente Loot was discharged from the hospital yesterday morning, three days after he accidentally shot himself on the left leg.

Senior Inspector Adrian Nalua, chief of the Daanbantayan Police Station, said Loot was invited as the guest of honor of the oath-taking ceremony of newly-elected barangay officials who are allied with him.

The ceremony was scheduled last night.

As Loot was declared out of harm’s way, Senior Supt. Manuel Abrugena, Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) director, said Loot’s police escorts may be pulled out upon clearance from the head of Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7).

Personnel from the Regional Crime Laboratory-7 visited Loot in the hospital but the Mayor declined to undergo a paraffin test to determine if he fired the gun.

Abrugena said they cannot force Loot to undergo a paraffin test.

“It was declared as an accident so we cannot force the mayor to undergo the (paraffin) test. What we really need to determine is the owner of the firearm,” explained Abrugena.

Abrugena said they will file criminal charges against the owner of the gun.

But police has neither found the gun nor discovered its owner.

Loot was reportedly on his way home after visiting the wake of his supporter in Barangay Lanao on Wednesday night (May 30).

He accidentally sat on the gun and it fired accidentally.

Loot sustained a gunshot wound on his left leg and was immediately rushed to Daanbantayan District Hospital for treatment.

President Rodrigo Duterte has identified Loot as among the country’s top illegal drug coddlers. The allegation was repeatedly denied by the Mayor.

Last May 13, a day before the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections, unidentified armed men fired at the pumpboat that Loot and his family were boarding while it was docking at the port in Barangay Maya, Daanbantayan.