By KATE LOUISE B. JAVIER
Caloocan’s new top cop pointed to deficiency in police personnel among factors in their continued failure to solve shooting incidents in the city.
Sr. Supt. Restituto Arcangel assumed leadership of Caloocan police following the relief of Sr. Supt. Jemar Modequillo allegedly due to the continued rise in shooting incidents in the city.
A total of 111 shooting incidents that killed 117 people were recorded during Modequillo’s term and more than half remain unsolved.
Arcangel said Caloocan City, which has a population of around 1.7 million has just 1,200 cops, a ratio of 1:1,400.
“That’s a huge difference from our ideal standard of 1:500. Ideally Caloocan should have at least 5,000 men,” he said.
Arcangel said they had already deployed 300 additional policemen from the Northern Police District-Mobile Force Battalion to the northern part of the city.
“We assigned more cops in the area where most shooting incidents happened,” Arcangel said.
The new city police’s chief also said that he plans to have additional five police community precincts (pcps) on top of the existing seven.
Meanwhile, Arcangel encouraged supervision from all commanders, emphasizing the importance of leadership.
“We are encouraging all officers to closely supervise our people. We are trying to implement leadership at all levels,” he explained.
