CHILD COLLAPSES ON STREET WHERE SHE BEGS FOR A LIVING AFTER COPS TAKE HER
TONEE DESPOJO/CEBU DAILY NEWS
12:30 AM | Saturday, April 25th, 2015
NOEMI
Mirabiles, who earns a living by begging on the streets of Cebu City,
clings to the coffin bearing the body of her daughter, Chastity, 11,
also a beggar, who was killed after physical abuses suffered allegedly
in the hands of Chief Insp. Wildemar Tiu and his men.
Chief Insp. Wildemar Tiu
CEBU
CITY—Life on the streets as a beggar ended in a violent death for an
11-year-old girl and possible criminal charges for the policeman who had
been accused of beating the girl and her companion up after the
children were rounded up as part of the city government’s campaign to
keep street children away from crimes.
The two girls,
both 11-year-olds, were picked up by police on April 5. The next day,
one of the girls, 11-year-old Chastity Mirabiles, who had been begging
in the streets, collapsed. She was brought to the city hospital where
she was declared dead on arrival.
The Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWS) officials became suspicious and started investigating.
The
other 11-year-old girl, also a beggar and who had kept Chastity
company, told DSWS officials how they were beaten up and subjected to
electric shock by Chief Insp. Wildemar Tiu, head of the Fuente police
station, and his subordinates.
Tiu is now facing
investigation by the National Bureau of Investigation and DSWS for
manhandling the street children. Tiu, who is on leave since April 20,
denied beating the girls up. “Why should I hurt children when they are
just victims of their parents?” he said.
NBI Assistant
Director Augusto Isidoro said they decided to intervene because the
accusations were “too serious to be ignored.” “The victim here is a
child, a girl at that,” he said on Thursday.
According
to the other 11-year-old girl, Chastity was sleeping on the pavement
outside a convenience store near Fuente Osmeña Rotunda around 2 a.m. on
April 5 when a policeman arrived and kicked her on the face. The witness
said the policeman “threw” Mirabiles into a police car and brought
Mirabiles and the other girl to Fuente police station.
The
other girl claimed that she and Mirabiles were given electric shock
inside the police station. The two girls were released from police
custody around 7 a.m. of April 6. Since Mirabiles was too weak to walk,
her companion had to carry her in her back while they headed to Fuente
Osmeña.
On April 5, Mirabiles was able to go home in
Barangay Sambag II here. The following day, she returned to Fuente
Osmeña to beg. At noon, she collapsed. Bystanders called an ambulance
and rushed Mirabiles to the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC), where the
girl was declared dead.
Tests made at the CCMC said the
cause of the girl’s death could have been dengue or heatstroke. But Dr.
Rene Cam, NBI medico-legal officer who conducted an autopsy on
Mirabiles, said he couldn’t support the hospital findings because no lab
tests were conducted.
Cam, however, said he found four
injuries caused by being hit with a blunt object on the girl’s body and
which could have caused her death. The injuries, Cam said, were too
much for a girl in Mirabiles’ age to bear. “At her age, those injuries
were very painful, really very painful,” said Cam. “If one can’t bear
the pain, he or she will go into shock,” he said.
The
injuries were found on her left and right chest, right lower abdomen and
right elbow, and could have been caused by being hit with either a
fist, wood or any object that could cause hematoma. Cam could not
confirm if the girl was given electric shock since he could not find any
signs of it.
Noemi Mirabiles, 42, who walks with the
help of a cane and also begs for a living, said she hoped justice would
be served for her daughter. “I dreamt of her the other day. She was
crying. She was asking me to help her. And I promised that I will not
stop until justice is served,” she said.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/687574/police-brutality-seen-in-girls-death
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