By Glazyl Masculino
BACOLOD CITY – A policeman, who had gone absent without official leave (AWOL), was gunned down by four unidentified armed men along Circumferential Road in Barangay Villamonte here Saturday.
Slain was Pat. Eric Alcosaba of Barangay Mansilingan here.
Maj. Reynante Jomocan, head of Police Station 4, said Alcosaba had just parked his pick-up truck in front of a fast-food chain around 3:50 p.m. when the gunmen approached him and fired at him.
Jomocan said Alcosaba managed to even run for a few meters away from his car but eventually fell.
One of the gunmen came after him and shot him again in the head at close-range before leaving on a sports utility vehicle.
Jomocan said the victim succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds. Police recovered more than 10 empty shells of unknown firearms.
He said the victim was probably being tailed by the perpetrators, considering that the attack was planned.
He said Alcosaba was previously assigned at Police Station 7 and City Drug Enforcement Unit (CDEU) here before he was moved to Mindanao in 2017, wherein he went Awol.
Alcosaba, based on earlier reports, was among the five police officers who were named in the supplemental affidavit of top drug suspect Ricky Serenio in 2017, as allegedly receiving weekly protection money from the "Berya" drug group.
However, Jomocan said he cannot comment any further because the investigation was still ongoing.
He said they will explore all possible angles behind the killing. “We will check if he had businesses, or had enemies which could trigger the killing,” he added.
Video footage showing one of the gunmen shooting the victim is now circulating on social media.
He said they will use it as evidence in their investigation to also identify the perpetrators, aside from the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage from nearby establishments.
Meanwhile, the incident resulted in traffic congestion in the area but was addressed immediately through the deployment of more traffic enforcers.