14 September 2005
Holdupmen take P.5M from elderly couple
By Behn Fer. Hortaleza, Jr.
PIA-Pangasinan
LINGAYEN – Pangasinan police led by Sr. Supt Alan LM Purisima, provincial police director, are reviewing anti-crime measures against gang robberies in the wake of at least two recent incidents in Urdaneta City that pointed to one and the same armed group behind it.
“We’re almost sure it’s one and the same gang” a senior police officer at the Provincial Police Office told the Pangasinan Star Thursday.
Supt. Ricardo Tamayo, police community relations officer, said last week’s failed holdup attempt on a cargo truck crew that had parked their trucks and rested by the roadside of the highway and last Wednesday’s noontime P500,000 holdup of an elderly couple in barangay Cabuloan, Urdaneta City, are strongly suspected to have been the work oof just one group of criminals.
The latest incident and previous attacks by armed holdupmen victimizing mostly bank clients who have just withdrawn huge sums of money and were probably tailed before being waylaid and held up has prompted the police to step up its community vigilance campaign among various sectors in order to secure quick and more accurate information on suspect descriptions and their possible escape routes from a more alert public.
In the truck crew’s failed holdup attempt where a truck helper was shot dead after he and his companions put up a fight, responding policemen did a hot pursuit of the fleeing culprits that took them all the way to Tarlac and Pampanga.
“It turned out to be a wild goose chase,” according to Tamayo, as the police only later learned the armed men had turned right towards barangay Lareg-laregin Malasiqui and did not escape towards Tarlac.
Tricycle drivers and other pedestrians belatedly told authorities that the fast-driving would-be robbers turned right off the main road just a few distance from where they assaulted the truck crew.
Last Wednesday’s holdup of old couple Francis Echalas, 78, a carpenter and his wife Lenila Asinit, 70, of barangay Cabuloan, Urdaneta, left Echalas wounded on the left arm after three men on a Honda TMX 155 motorcylce stopped them and fired at the vehicle when the occupants refused to open the door of their Expedition vehicle.
Frightened, the couple, together with their niece identified as Eva Mesalucha, opened the vehicle door and the men quickly grabbed the shoulder bag of Mrs. Echalas containing the money and sped off westward.
Police set up checkpoints immediately after the alarm was flashed to all possible routes of the holdupmen but the suspects eluded arrest.
PIA-Pangasinan
LINGAYEN – Pangasinan police led by Sr. Supt Alan LM Purisima, provincial police director, are reviewing anti-crime measures against gang robberies in the wake of at least two recent incidents in Urdaneta City that pointed to one and the same armed group behind it.
“We’re almost sure it’s one and the same gang” a senior police officer at the Provincial Police Office told the Pangasinan Star Thursday.
Supt. Ricardo Tamayo, police community relations officer, said last week’s failed holdup attempt on a cargo truck crew that had parked their trucks and rested by the roadside of the highway and last Wednesday’s noontime P500,000 holdup of an elderly couple in barangay Cabuloan, Urdaneta City, are strongly suspected to have been the work oof just one group of criminals.
The latest incident and previous attacks by armed holdupmen victimizing mostly bank clients who have just withdrawn huge sums of money and were probably tailed before being waylaid and held up has prompted the police to step up its community vigilance campaign among various sectors in order to secure quick and more accurate information on suspect descriptions and their possible escape routes from a more alert public.
In the truck crew’s failed holdup attempt where a truck helper was shot dead after he and his companions put up a fight, responding policemen did a hot pursuit of the fleeing culprits that took them all the way to Tarlac and Pampanga.
“It turned out to be a wild goose chase,” according to Tamayo, as the police only later learned the armed men had turned right towards barangay Lareg-laregin Malasiqui and did not escape towards Tarlac.
Tricycle drivers and other pedestrians belatedly told authorities that the fast-driving would-be robbers turned right off the main road just a few distance from where they assaulted the truck crew.
Last Wednesday’s holdup of old couple Francis Echalas, 78, a carpenter and his wife Lenila Asinit, 70, of barangay Cabuloan, Urdaneta, left Echalas wounded on the left arm after three men on a Honda TMX 155 motorcylce stopped them and fired at the vehicle when the occupants refused to open the door of their Expedition vehicle.
Frightened, the couple, together with their niece identified as Eva Mesalucha, opened the vehicle door and the men quickly grabbed the shoulder bag of Mrs. Echalas containing the money and sped off westward.
Police set up checkpoints immediately after the alarm was flashed to all possible routes of the holdupmen but the suspects eluded arrest.
