2 shabu peddlers dead, cop wounded in clash

COTABATO CITY — Two drug suspects were killed, and a police officer was wounded during a brief clash in Barangay Camino Nuevo, Zamboanga City, on Monday night, September 22.

Local executives and barangay leaders told reporters on Wednesday, September 24, that the slain Harold Elum, 45, and his 45-year-old cohort, Melvin Flores, are both known traffickers of shabu and marijuana, who had contacts in far-flung barangays in Zamboanga City.

Officials of the Zamboanga City Police Office and Police Regional Office-9 told reporters on Wednesday, September 24, that the operation was meant to entrap the duo, but it went awry.

Elum and Flores pulled out long knives and a short machete and attacked the supposed buyers of their illegal merchandise when they sensed that they were to be entrapped at one side of a thoroughfare in  Barangay Camino Nuevo.

A non-uniformed policeman, Police Senior Master Sgt. Ajlen Julkarnain, was wounded in their rampage. He was immediately brought to a hospital by emergency responders for treatment. 

PRO-9 officials had told reporters that the barangay officials and a team of police forensic experts found in the pockets of the slain Elum and Flores heat-sealed plastic sachets containing shabu.

Investigators and barangay officials estimated the total value of the shabu found at the scene at no less than P34,000.