People v Gerente (1993, G.R. Nos. 95847-48)

People v Gabriel Gerente

G.R. Nos. 95847-48. March 10, 1993

 

Facts:

In April 1990, policemen received a report of a mauling incident and after receiving reports from the hospital officials, and they went to the scene of the crime. They arrested Gerente 3 hours after Gerente and his companions killed Blace. Blace was found dead in the hospital where they found the instruments of death: a piece of wood and a concrete hollow block which the killers had used. The eye-witness, Edna Edwina Reyes, reported the happening to the policemen and pinpointed her neighbor, Gerente, as one of the killers. 

 

 

Issue: W/N the warrantless arrest was valid.

 

Held: The warrantless arrest was valid since the policemen had personal knowledge of the violent death of Blace and of facts indicating that Gerente and two others had killed him. If they had postponed his arrest until they could obtain a warrant, he would have fled the law as his two companions did.

 

The search conducted on Gerente's person was likewise lawful because it was made as an incident to a valid arrest (Section 12, Rule 126). The frisk and search of appellant's person upon his arrest was a permissible precautionary measure of arresting officers to protect themselves, for the person who is about to be arrested may be armed and might attack them unless he is first disarmed.