Corporal detained for being 'trigger-happy'

JAKARTA (JP): The city police have detained a police corporal over the shooting of an 18-year-old student in the midst of Saturday's street brawl in Jatinegara, East Jakarta, an officer said on Sunday.

Jakarta Police chief Maj. Gen. Nurfaizi identified the arrested officer as First Cpl. Suyitno and said the latter was not aiming at the student but that he had shot him by accident.

"The officer was trying to disperse the students involved in the street brawl. But the students attacked him and he was firing warning shots (when one of the bullets hit the victim)," Nurfaizi said.

But he pledged to probe the case thoroughly.

"Suyitno is now being detained at the Internal Affairs division. We will proceed with the case," he said.

The victim was identified as Tri Eka Sakti, 18, a resident of Bekasi and a student of STM PGRI 3 vocational school in Pisangan Timur, East Jakarta.

Tri, who was in his school uniform, was found near the Pisangan Baru railway lines, some 500 meters from his school. He had been shot in the back of the head.

A bystander told reporters that at about 12 p.m. the boy got off the Bekasi train with 15 of his classmates. He was immediately attacked by students from an unidentified school, who were already in the area.

Jatinegara police chief of detectives and intelligence Second Lt. Bambang Setyosembodo told reporters on Saturday that officers from the Jatinegara Police subprecinct and East Jakarta Police precinct, who were on the scene to secure the area, fired two warning shots to disperse the brawling students.

"Suddenly, they saw one student on to the ground. The student was already dead," he said.

The victim's parents, Jahidu and Tati Sumiyati, said that Triekasakti was the third of their four children.

"The school always posts a teacher in the area, to make sure that these fights don't happen... police were also there," Jahidu said.

"They fired their first warning shot, 15 minutes after the brawl. They fired another warning shot, which immediately dispersed the brawling students... it was then that they found the body of our son on the ground."

Angered with the death of their friend, the students stopped a passing police officer and set his motorcycle ablaze later in the afternoon. Their attempt to attack the officer, however, was prevented by the school's teacher who managed to persuade the students not to take the law into their hands.

In an unrelated development, Second Corporal Warsito of the detachment division of the Kalisari Infantry Brigade I of Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta, was nearly beaten to death on Friday night by angry residents of the Karet Tengsin area in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta over a motorcycle theft.

City police spokesman Lt. Col. Zainuri Lubis said on Saturday that Warsito was caught in the act of stealing a motorcycle near the Benhill market in Tanah Abang, at about 7:20 p.m. on Friday.

"Residents got really mad... they chased him. He hit a person and he fell from the motorcycle. He was immediately mobbed," Zainuri said. (ylt/06/nvn)