The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr David Asante-Apeatu, has directed the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters to take over investigations into a shooting incident that led to the death of a woman and injured two others at Ankaful Junction in the Central Region at about 6:30 a.m. on Thursday.
According to the Central Regional Police Command, Mr Asante-Apeatu tasked the CID to submit a report to his office within three weeks, and had assured the relatives of the victims and members of the public that the necessary investigative procedures would be undertaken to unravel the truth.
The police were chasing some suspected armed robbers from Praso when the incident occurred.
The deceased, Mrs Mary Aboagye, 38, and her husband, Mr Aboagye Okyere, 47, were hit by stray bullets in a taxi which they had boarded. Okyere was injured in the process.
Another person, Cecilia Mensah, 15, who was waiting for a vehicle by the roadside, was also hit by a stray bullet, resulting in some injuries.
Press briefing
Speaking at a press briefing, the Central Regional Commander of Police, Deputy Commander of Police (DCOP) Paul Manly Awini, said while on patrol duties, personnel of the Praso Police had a tip-off that a BMW saloon vehicle was being used by suspected armed robbers in an operation.
He said upon sighting the car, “the police chased the suspected armed robbers and on reaching the police barriers at Praso and Jukwa the suspected robbers caused damage to the barricades and sped off.
The police chased them up to Brimso and the robbers again ignored a signal by the police officers on duty to stop and they nearly knocked down a policeman on duty.”
The body of Mrs Aboagye has been deposited at the morgue while the injured persons are receiving treatment at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital.
Arrest
DCOP Awini said in the course of the firing of gunshots, the vehicle of the suspects ran into a ditch and two of them escaped.
He added that two other suspects, Joseph Quansah, 36, and Daniel Ewusi, 32, were arrested.
He said seven live goats and five dead ones were retrieved from the BMW car.
Source: Graphic Online
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Please operational matters are what they are. He is demanding some report in three weeks.For his scrutiny? He is above operational matters. He will have to be thinking of a straegic plan for five years ten years and so on, put systems together to ensure success, contingency planining anhd evaluations. This in tray out tray activities of our very senior echelons of management must stop. When you go to those who are applying the knowledge they acquired at higher levels of education i.e classroom education in the workplace, they do not have the in tray out tray mentality. They have telephones, writing boards, round table small conference rooms, research facilities and so on. Thier offices are those of knowledge and if you are whisked into such offices, you will have to know your stuff. You are asked vital questions. Those at the IGPs level will make sure that their systems are working. Please you have been briefed as an operations person on what is needed, what should be done, what should be achieved. If the IGP is to come down to the operations level, then it is field supervision. To be involved in day to day operational issues is a step too far. Now, there is a moral aspect. If you infer that he does not get involved in all crimes, what is the ethical basis of him not directing the CID at the headquaters and expecting them to provide a report to him when armed robbers snatched my friends car on the Odorkor high way? Is this crime more important than the one perpertrated against my firend? You see getting involved in such operational stuff is a murky territory for someone in the IGPs position. With the metropolitan police, when things like this arise you don't hear the Commissioner talking like this or her public affairs department issuing such statements. She comes to talk about the systems put in place and the results expected. If it does not happen, you see heads roling left right center sometimes not immediately. sometimes her deputy commissioners start to resign on their own accord. The philosophy is that you were found to be competent before applying or being appointed to that position so if you cannot achieve, get out. As simple as possible. When you apply for a job in these areas they ask you what can you do not what paper qualifications you have period.If you are an operations person, how can you achieve operational results. If you can't, there is no place for you in operations go home or go and do apprenticeship when you QUALIFY, you come back. The chief executive will give you a free hand to operate.
There are CID officers at the regional police headquarters. The fact that the IGP directed the CID does not mean Maame Tiwaa should go to the Central Region to run the investigations.
What is this? IGP directs CID at the headquarters? I thought there were police officers stationed at various places to investigate such grievous shootings and crime in general. Do we need the IGP to be directing such things? Who then will be in charge of strategic thinking then? So our criminal justice system is operated on in tray out tray basis just like our colonial masters left it.