BY ANTHONY GIRON
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CAMP GEN. PANTALEON GARCIA, IMUS CITY, Cavite – A police officer was killed Wednesday night after the car he was driving was fired upon by men on board another car at an intersection in Barangay Bayanan, Bacoor City, the Cavite Police Provincial Office (PPO) reported on Thursday.
Police Senior Master Sgt. Walter Agoho Mercado, 40, suffered bullet wounds and was declared dead on arrival at the Saint Dominic Medical Center in Bacoor where he was brought by the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (DRRMO) team.
Mercado was a desk officer assigned to the Bacoor police station. He was a former Bacoor intelligence and drug enforcement unit member and had also been designated at police stations in Tanauan City, Batangas, and Binangonan Rizal.
Bacoor Police chief Lieutenant Colonel Vicente S. Cabatingan said that Mercado was shot by still unidentified men on board an Innova car at the intersection of Molino Boulevard and Bayanan Road at 9:10 p.m. Wednesday.
Mercado was driving a Mitsubishi Montero car (WIZ 285) on his way to the house of his in-laws from the Bacoor police station.
The Scene of the Crime Operatives (SoCO) recovered at the shooting site several shells from bullets fired by the assailants.
In an interview, Cabatingan said that he and his investigators were still determining the motive behind the attack.
“We are looking into all angles now, also all the available close-circuit television (CCTV) footage at the site, statements of witnesses and the report of the SoCO. There was nothing definite yet as to the motive (of the killing),” Cabatingan said.
Cabatingan and case investigator Staff Sergeant Roy Vincent C. Reyes have withheld for the meantime the other details about the incident pending the identification of the suspects and their arrest.
Observers believed that the gunmen’s car had tailed Mercado’s car from the police station to the shooting scene.
