MALASIQUI – A barangay kagawad of neighboring Calasiao town has been identified as the slain man in a Thursday early dawn shootout in barangay Cabatling between town policemen and car-riding group of thieves.

Marlon S. Papio whose bloodied body was found by a police alert team not far from where the theft suspects’ Mercedes Benz ditched in a canal during a police chase, was identified by relatives who heard about the shootout from radio reports.

His distraught wife, in a brief interview by a radio reporter before she was led away by other relatives, said her husband was fetched by two men late Wednesday night but did not know where they went. She strongly denied that her husband had never handled a gun before and thus could not have engaged lawmen in a shoototut.

P/Supt Harris Fama, newly-installed chief of police of Malasiqui, said Papio, along with one or two other companions shot at a police team that was responding to a complaint about the car-riding suspects having just stolen water pump machines (used for agricultural multi-purpose units commonly called kuliglig) in barangay Malimpec.

Fama said his police station had been on alert since they noted reports of several thefts of water pump units a couple of months ago and lost no time responding to the Malimpec complaint, even in the early dawn hours.

He said his team met the old model Mercedes Benz of the suspects in barangay Cabatling and were flagging it down when they were fired upon. An exchange of gunfire ensued with the car swerving and getting ditched in a roadside canal.

In the dawn darkness, the policemen had to call for reinforcements, fearing the occupants were still hiding in the vicinity despite their damaged vehicle. Fama himself led a team to the scene, riding on a fire truck and asking the firemen to scour the area with their foglights

They later found the badly wounded Papio some meters away and brought him to the Malasiqui Health Center but he was pronounced dead on arrival. Other items recovered at the encounter area, according to him, were a shotgun, pair of slippers and two water pump units in the car used by the suspects.