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)