Lapu lieutenant guns down waiter

A Lapu-Lapu city policeman was arrested  after he shot dead a waiter and wounded a bouncer in a commotion in a bar past midnight yesterday.

Insp. Rogelio Amoroso, 35, later went to the police station to surrender.

A native of Tabuelan town, northern Cebu, went to the LLCPO Headquarters and gave himself up.

Police identified the fatality as John Stephen Lagsanay,  an 18-year-old waiter, who was apparently mistaken for someone else.

A he bouncer, Archie Gesta, 37, was wounded in the abdomen.

Gesta told police that the police officer arrived at the Lotus Resto Bar  in barangay Basak about 1 a.m.

Asked to  deposit his gun for safekeeping, a standard security measure, the policeman refused and got angry.

A confrontation ensued with Gesta and another bouncer, said PO2 Luisito Ernie, homicide investigator.

Police said Amoroso went  out to his car. When he returned, he fired a gun at  Gesta and went looking for the other bouncer.

Amoroso mistook a  waiter, Lagsanay, as the bouncer he had tangled with and shot the young man at the back of the head and neck before leaving the bar on foot.

His car was left parked outsdie.

A femal Jonalyn Selatrava,

A  close female friend of the slain water, who was  in the bar, said she saw the policeman shoot Lagsanay Amoroso twice in the stomach and fired more shots inside the bar.

“Nagpataka na man lang to siya ug pamusil. Akong amigo maoy na-igo (He fired his gun indiscriminately and hit my frined),” said Selatrava, who added the policeman was already intoxicated when he arrived at the bar.

Insp. Amoroso had a different version of the incident.

He said he was with two other policemen and a civilian couple in the bar.

The policeman said that while they were drinking, Lagsanay accidentally hit him. He said he accosted the waiter and asked him  to apologize but he refused to do so. The waiter allegedly went back together with a the bouncer.

Amoroso said he and Gesta had an argument and claimed that the bouncer punched him  in the face.
Amoroso said the bouncer allegedly kept on hitting him despite identifying himself as a policeman.

The policeman said he managed to get  out of the bar and took his  gun from his car.

Amoroso said he shot Gesta when he saw him at the bar’s entrance door then went inside and also shot the waiter.

“Mangayo lagi ko ug pasaylo sa pamilya sa akong mga napusil. Kay adtong higayuna, nasakitan ko sa ilang gibuhat, instinct to nako nga mo-balos tungod kay ila kong gipasakitan ug una (I want to apologize to the families of the persons I shot. I was hurt and my instinct at that time was to retaliate because they attacked me first),” said Amoroso.

After the shooting, Amoroso said he headed to the house of Supt. Rodulfo Albotra, chief of the intelligence division of the Cebu City Police Office.

He later showed up at the LLCPO headquarters at around 5 a.m. to  surrender. He also turned in his  9mm pistol.
Three spent 9mm shells were recovered from the crime scene.

Police said homicide and attempted homicide charges are prepared against Amoroso.

Supt. Jonathan Abella, LLCPO’s deputy director for administration, said they have asked the establishment’s management  to hand over  a copy of the bar’s closed-circuit television camera footage.
Investigators are hoping the surveillance camera managed to record what transpired inside the bar.

Abella assured the victims’ family that the police will be fair in handling the case.

“Maayo man na siya (Amoroso) sa iyang trabaho. Kugihan. Pero we will take this matter seriously. No cover-ups. We assure the family that they will be given fair and honest investigation from our end,” said Abella.

Abella said they would also welcome if the victims’ relatives decide to ask another investigating body like the National Bureau of Investigation to handle the case.