CEBU CITY—A police officer accused of extortion and rape killed himself inside the comfort room of a police office in this city Monday night.

Authorities said Police Staff Sergeant Celso Lucero Colita was discovered lifeless and and lying in blood in the Regional Police Drug Enforcement Unit office past 9 p.m.

“He was summoned to the DEU by his superior for an interview on his alleged involvement in drugs,” said Police Senior Master Sergeant Jephthah Jumawan, the case investigator.

“Yet when he asked permission to go to the comfort room, they were shocked to hear a gunshot."

Colita reportedly used a .45 caliber pistol to shoot himself in the head.

“They were shocked why he had a firearm on him,” Jumawan said, because dismissed officers were usually disarmed.

Colita is one of 11 police officers at the Sawang Police Station in Cebu City relieved for alleged extortion and rape last March.

Colita's suicide happened 2 hours after the primary complainant in the cases filed against him and others was gunned down in the same city.

Ritchie Nepomuceno, 35, was walking along at N. Bacalao Avenue when unidentified assailants shot her past 7 p.m.

She was the one who pointed at Colita for placing her in a secret jail.

Nepomuceno’s testimony was instrumental to the suspension of the city government’s allowance for police station personnel.

The Commission on Human Rights in Central Visayas will look into the matter, because Nepomuceno was supposed to be under their care.

Police, meanwhile, said they are still trying to connect the two incidents. — Report from Annie Perez

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Watch more in iWantv or TFC.tv