Police: San Pedro Columbia villagers detentions were illegal

Tuesday, September 2, 2014. JUAN CAAL Reporting: The officer commanding Punta Gorda police, Superintendent Simeon Alvarez says residents of San Pedro Columbia village had no rights to “detain” relatives of a man believed to have murdered a woman in the village on Saturday afternoon.

The body of 62 year old Agripina Coc was found a short distance away from her home in the rural Toledo village on Saturday evening.

Police are now looking for a man who they believe is responsible for the brutal slaying; but residents of the village met on Monday evening and decided that they would place the family of the main suspect under “communal detention” in the hopes of luring the suspect out of hiding.

Things got heated in the village last night as the villages sought to round up the family members and at one point at least three male members of the family were taken into “custody.”

Today, Superintendent Alvarez explained that there were no legal reasons for the villagers to detain any of those family members and he explains that the good intentions of the villagers could actually land them in a whole heap of trouble, legally.

httpv://youtu.be/YIDtRrMWuLU

The manhunt continues for the main suspect in the weekend slaying of Agripina Coc.  Police are withholding the identity of the suspect and have asked the media not to release that name as yet because they are still gathering evidence as the investigation continues.

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