POLICE Colonel Gemma Vinluan has been relieved as Cebu City Police Office director over the ambush-slay of Clarin, Misamis Occidental mayor David Navarro.
Central Visayas Police Regional Office (PRO-7) Director Valeriano de Leon said Colonel Giovani Maines will replace Vinluan.
He said he ordered Vinluan's relief effective Wednesday, October 30, "to make her available" for the investigation being conducted on the Navarro killing.
De Leon, at the same time, welcomed President Rodrigo Duterte's instruction to turn over the investigation to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
"It will provide a perception of impartial investigation sparing us of suspicion of possible whitewash. It will allow my organization and my personnel to focus on the more important functions of anti-criminality and protecting the communities from crime," he said.
Duterte ordered the NBI to take over the investigation from the police as he questioned the police's failure to retaliate and pursue the gunmen who ambushed and killed Navarro.
Navarro, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, was in police custody when he was killed on October 25, 2019.
He was in a police car, seated between his town's police chief and his sister, and was on his way to the Cebu City Prosecutor's Office for an inquest proceeding over a slight physical injuries complaint filed by a massage parlor attendant.
The police car was in the middle of a three-car convoy. After the lead car, another police car, had turned left towards the Prosecutor's Office along M. Velez St., Cebu City, a white van blocked the police car transporting Navarro and a van behind it.
Four men with long firearms fired at both vehicles before they pulled Navarro out of the car and shot him in the head.
The Clarin police chief beside Navarro was wounded. Four other policemen in the same car as Navarro failed to retaliate. Police also did not pursue the gunmen when they fled.
Navarro was on Duterte's narco list. But he was booked for slight physical injuries after he allegedly mauled a massage parlor attendant.
The mayor was in Cebu City for a workshop and had gone to the massage parlor in his hotel on October 23, 2019. He was arrested on October 24 and detained at the Abellana Police Station in Cebu City. (Third Anne Peralta-Malonzo/SunStar Philippines and AYB/Superbalita Cebu)
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