A Quezon City police official denied knowledge that the cop on AWOL (absent without official leave), tagged in killing a senior citizen and later shot dead in Manila, was a coddler of a drug lord.
Quezon City Police District director Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar said they had no information that Police Officer 1 Jerald Paguinto was involved in illegal drugs or a drug lord coddler.
The 37-year-old cop was shot dead around 5:15 p.m. by unidentified assailants in a house reportedly owned by a notorious drug pusher in Baseco Compound, Manila.
According to the Manila police report, residents in the area alleged that Paguinto served as a hitman for the alleged drug lord.
He allegedly killed the drug lord’s distributors who failed to remit their dues.
Eleazar, however, said they had no information about the Manila police’s claims.
“We don’t have any information about it…(His records) don’t have much details…What I know is he was assigned to the QCPD just last year,” he said.
Eleazar said Paguinto, a cop for 15 years, was assigned to the QCPD only in October 2016 and was detailed at Talipapa Police Station’s anti-drug unit in December, a month before all anti-drug operations were suspended.
He was transferred to the station’s follow-up team after the suspension.
His three-page profile, also, did not show any derogatory record or involvement in trouble.
Before his death, Paguinto went AWOL after authorities named him as the primary suspect in the killing of 68-year-old Julito Ramos, whose body was found riddled with bullets and handcuffed outside the North Cemetery on A. Bonifacio Avenue in Barangay NS Amoranto on the night of March 5, an hour after he was seen mauling and forcing Ramos onto his motorcycle outside a bar earlier the same night.
Eleazar said Paguinto may have sought refuge in the drug personality’s residence as QC police were hunting him down for the alleged murder. (VANNE ELAINE P. TERRAZOLA)