Witnesses fail to identify FEU player Baracael's shooter

MANILA, Philippines – The Manila Police District (MPD) on Friday failed to get a lead in the shooting of Far Eastern University basketball player Marnel Baracael despite obtaining a surveillance video that was said to have recorded images of several suspects. Teammates of Tamaraws forward Marnel Baracael and other witnesses failed to identify the suspect shown in the video taken by PhilTrust bank's closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera in a copy given by the bank's security officials. In an interview, Chief Inspector Dominador Arevalo Jr of the MPD Homicide Division said Baracael’s teammates, Ron Cabagnot and Robert Kave, along with vendors Arnie Mineque and Dolores Arteche, failed to point who the gunman was after watching the footage. The video showed that around 8:28 p.m., Baracael and his teammates stepped in front of the bank in the Sampaloc district of the capital city, but the suspect was still not seen. Moments later, the video showed that the group walked towards R. Papa Street, but still no image of the suspect was seen on the video. Authorities believe that the suspect followed Baracael while buying groceries at the Ever Department Store and timed the shooting when the victim reached a dark area at the side of the bank. In his sworn statement, Cabagnot said he failed to see the face of the suspect because he panicked and only saw the smoke coming out of the gun. He said the suspect missed Baracael on the fist shot and told Cabagnot to run. Cabagnot also denied the claims that the motive was of game fixing. Meanwhile, Mineque said that she did not clearly saw the suspects’ image because of a post in front of his view. But Arevalo said that he would put the video pictures in sequence to clearly see on who was following the victim. – GMANews.TV