A police officer and two known illegal gun dealers were killed in an entrapment operation in Pagadian City before dawn Sunday, August 23, that went awry.
Officials of the Police Regional Office 9 and local executives in Pagadian City separately told reporters at noon Sunday that Major Aiman Khuzaimah Pantaran, chief of the intelligence unit of the Pagadian City Police Station, died from a gunshot wound to the chest.
The operation, which was planned by Pantaran and his subordinates, turned haywire when siblings Janie Bravo Gomez and Jerry Bravo Gomez pulled out guns and opened fire after realizing they were dealing with plainclothes police officers during the supposed firearms trade-off at Purok Malipayon in Barangay Dao, Pagadian City, Region 9.
Both of them had been repeatedly jailed early for various criminal offenses, according to local executives in Pagadian City.
Officials of PRO-9 and ranking members of the multi-sector Pagadian City Peace and Order Council said the duo, known peddlers of unlicensed firearms and traffickers of shabu and marijuana, also died from bullet wounds sustained in the brief shootout.
Pantaran and the two targets of the entrapment operation were declared dead on arrival by doctors at the Mendero Medical Center in Pagadian City, where police officers and civilian emergency responders brought them for treatment.
The slain gun dealers were reportedly linked to criminal gangs in Lanao del Sur province that units of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region had neutralized in separate operations last year, with assistance from intelligence personnel of the Army’s 103rd Infantry Brigade under the 1st Infantry Division.