Cops trade bullets with fleeing ‘drug peddler’

By: Glazyl Y. Masculino

BACOLOD City – A buy-bust operation led to a brief chase and gun battle after a suspected drug personality fled on board a white van in Sagay City, Negros Occidental Monday night.

Police identified the suspect as Constantino Anog of Barangay Poblacion 1.  Police claimed he is an alleged drug pusher and user.

Police Colonel Romeo Baleros, director of Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (Nocppo), said Anog sensed the presence of the police operative he was transacting with, prompting him to escape from the operation conducted at the said village around 11 p.m.

Sagay policemen chased Anog, who allegedly fired his gun at the operatives while he was driving the van.

Baleros said the officers shot the tires and the radiator of the vehicle to stop the suspect from escaping but he still managed to flee towards the direction of Bacolod City.

No injuries were reported.

Pursuit operations were conducted which led to the recovery of the vehicle at the boundary of Cadiz and Sagay.

Also recovered from the car were three sachets of suspected shabu, the P500 marked money, P90 cash, a .45 caliber pistol with magazine loaded with six live ammunition, a fired bullet of the same firearm, a fragmentation grenade, an improvised tooter, and three lighters.

Baleros also said they will check the background of the suspect after police recovered an Identification card from the vehicle, identifying him as a civil security aide of a town in the province.

The suspect is still at large.