South Jakarta police hunt for cop killers
South Jakarta police hunt for cop killers
JAKARTA (JP): South Jakarta police detectives are still searching for at least four other street hoodlums allegedly involved in an attack of two police officers, with one fatally stabbed in the abdomen.
The fugitives, mostly hailing from Ambon, were identified as Mario, Steve, Amirson and Kifli, head of the crime investigation unit Capt. Charles H. Ngili told reporters here yesterday.
"The number of the wanted hoodlums believed to have played a role in the assault might be more than 10," Ngili said.
The local police claimed that they have already had complete data on all of the wanted street thugs.
Therefore, the South Jakarta police chief, Lt. Col. SY Wenas, urged the fugitives to turn themselves in immediately to a nearby police station before having to face more serious consequences.
"We promise to treat them better if they turn themselves in," Wenas pledged.
Capt. Arman Depari and First Leiutenant Budi Prasetyo Utomo, officers who were taking the two-year class at the Police College here, were reportedly attacked by a group of drunken street hoodlums at around 5:30 p.m. Monday at the exit ramp located between the Melawai Plaza building and the Effata church at the crowded Blok M shopping center.
Arman suffered several bruises in the face while Budi died due to a fatal stab in the abdomen and bruises and wounds in the face and body.
Budi, head of the public counseling unit at the Tarakan police precinct in East Kalimantan, was buried on the next day in a military ceremony at the Tanah Kusir public cemetery in South Jakarta.
Minutes after the incident, police cleaned up the scene from street hoodlums and captured four people believed to have been involved in the murder..
The following day police arrested another member of the group.
Djupri, 24, popularly known as Frengky Tulehu among his friends, has admitted to fatally stabbing Budi, 29, with a pocket knife.
"When I saw the victim laid on the road I took my knife from my pocket and stabbed it once right at the pit of his abdomen," Frengky told The Jakarta Post at the South Jakarta police detention yesterday.
"But I had no idea if the two victims were plaincloth police officers until a detective who arrested me in Bogor informed me that I had killed a police officer," he said.
Frengky was arrested on Tuesday afternoon while having a cool drink in front of the Baranangsiang bus terminal in Bogor, 54 kilometers south of the city.
The first four suspects were identified as Reza Lawalatta, Jimiko Danyanto, alias Mico (not Nico as reported earlier), James Rudi Lasatira, and Idris Tuarita, all aged between 20 and 25 years.
They were arrested at separate places several hours after the the attack on the two plaincloth police officers.
The arrested suspects told the Post that the two officers were driving a Grand Civic sedan as they left a nearby parking lot when Mario waved his hands and approached them.
"I tried to tell one of the officers (Arman) not to talk with Mario because he was drunk," Mico said. "But the officer warned Mario that he was a police captain, but Mario simply ignored it," he added.
After a heated argument, Mario punched Arman in the face, followed by the other suspects, Mico said.
"But Idris and I didn't attack the two people," claimed Mico, which was confirmed by the others.
The suspects will face around seven to 12 years imprisonment if found guilty.
In another related development, speaker of City Council M.H. Ritonga said yesterday that lack of security control and the unavailability of an efficient parking system have caused parking lots in the city prone to crime.
"The city administration has not yet had a parking system which can handle crime in parking lots because there is no clear concept to control street criminals," he told reporter, adding that due to these facts many street criminals are controlling parking lots in the city.
He also explained that the city police have been neglecting street criminals and let them control parking lots around the city which make them feel that they are above the law, and when police try to seize them they do not surrender easily.
"The police should take firm action against street hoodlums to deter them from committing crime," Ritonga said, adding that the police should also take similar actions against policemen who act as criminals' backers.
"Now, street criminals in Jakarta are mushrooming and they have become more violent than the ones in other cities. There fore police should get rid of them once and for all through special and regular operations," Ritonga said. (bsr/yns)