Masbate fisherman shot dead by cop after fist fight

By Jorge Hallare LEGAZPI CITY --- A rogue police officer shot dead a fisherman after an altercation over a cellphone that was accidentally dropped at the seashore off Claveria town in the island province Masbate pre-dawn on Wednesday last week, said a belated report that reached the Police Regional Office in Bicol (PRO5) here the other day. The police report at PRO5 headquarters in Camp Simeon Ola here identified the victim as Argie S. Urbano, 27, who was with his cousin and friends lying alongside the seawall in Sitio Intramuros, Barangay Poblacion District 1 in Claveria around 2:45 a.m. when he engaged the suspect in a heated argument. According to the report, Urbano accidentally dropped his cellphone but was able to recover it but the suspect, identified as PO1 Rodney Mark R. Oller, 26, approached the former and taunted him. The report said the incident resulted in a verbal spat between the two that triggered a fistfight and later the drawing of Oller’s service firearm. Urbano was dead on the spot from a gunshot wound in the stomach while Oller fled the scene of crime. Chief Insp. Jonathan Apili, chief of the Claveria Municipal Police Office (MPO), said they immediately ordered a hot pursuit operation against Oller after having recovered an empty shell of .45-caliber pistol at the crime scene. At 11 a.m. that same day, Oller reportedly voluntarily surrendered to the 5th Regional Public Safety Battalion (RPSB) based in Milagros town, also in Masbate while admitting to Urbano’s killing. Oller, a native of Barangay San Nicolas Central, Agoo, La Union, is assigned at the 5th RPSB. Insp. Glen Alumit, platoon leader of the Alpha Company of RPSB, immediately turned over Oller to Claveria MPO which prepared the charges against the suspect.