MARIKINA City Mayor Marcelino “Marcy” Teodoro on Monday vowed that justice will be served following the questionable death of a 23-year-old construction worker in the hands of a policeman last week.
At the same time, Teodoro ordered the conduct of a thorough investigation in the death of Kim Lester Ramos, 23, who was shot and killed by Corporal Herjonner Soller, member of the Marikina Police Intelligence Unit. The friend of Ramos, Lauro Lagarde, an administrative staff, was shot in the stomach during the alleged gun scuffle.
Teodoro visited Lagarde at the Amang Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center (ARMMC) to get his side about the incident involving the cop and checked his condition.
“We won’t stop until we know what really happened. We will make sure that his death will have a just resolution. If irregularities are proven in the incident, I will make sure people are made liable. There will be no coverup,” the mayor told Lagarde in Filipino.
The mayor said he has already coordinated with the Commission of Human Rights (CHR) for an impartial probe of the incident.
He said they tapped the CHR “because we expect them to be independent and not favor anyone. We expect the truth to emerge from their investigation,” Teodoro explained.
The mayor told Lagarde that he will shoulder all his medical expenses.
All the information given by Soller was belied by Lagarde, saying there was no scuffle as the policeman abruptly pointed a gun at them.
Lagarde narrated to Teodoro what happened to them that night.
“We had just finished playing basketball and were seated on the gutter waiting for a fellow player. Kim and I were joking with each other when a policeman onboard a motorcycle passed by,” he recalled.
“The cop suddenly told us, ‘Hey, you addicts better stop taking drugs.’ And then he left,” Lagarde recalled.
While on their way to a nearby eatery, aboard a motorcycle, they saw the cop at the intersection of Mount Vernon and Gil Fernando Street, so Lagarde confronted the cop. “I asked him, ‘Sir, why are you calling us addicts?’”
The cop suddenly pointed a gun at them, but Lagarde parried it, “so I was hit in the stomach. My companion [Kim] then ran away, but the policeman shot him in the head as he was just about five steps away from Kim,” Lagarde continued.
With the quick response of Marikina Rescue 161, Lagarde was rushed to the ARMMC where his wound was treated.
“Thanks to the quick response of Marikina Rescue 161, he is still alive right now. His intestine was hit, but because he was immediately brought here, we were able to conduct an operation to repair his intestine,” Lagarde’s doctor told Teodoro.
According to a report of the Marikina Police, Ramos was shot in the head by Soller because he allegedly tried to take the gun of the cop on October 5 at around 6:30 p.m. Lagarde, the cop said, also tried to get his gun, that was why he was hit in the stomach during the “gun scuffle.”
On Monday, a team of Eastern Police District-Internal Affairs Service (EPD-AIS) went to the hospital to investigate the circumstances of the shooting.
Soller is currently under restrictive custody pending a probe.