Cop shot dead by two assailants

A police officer with the Rapid Response Unit at Tema was on Monday night gunned down by two unidentified armed men on a motorbike while he was on his way to work.

The incident happened at the Michel Camp road opposite a UBI filing station.

Narrating the incident to Moro Awudu on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Tuesday 13 June, a police officer [name withheld] said he suspected the attack was a reprisal from a group of criminals from Tema.

He said: “Yesterday around 9pm we were on our usual patrol and we had a call that a policeman had been shot just along the road of Michel Camp opposite the UBI filling station. So we got there and saw him lying in a pool of blood. But from eyewitnesses they said the policeman was on a motorbike passing and one other motor came and overtook him, accosted him and the one at the back opened fire on him several times. When we got there he was lying in a pool of blood.”

Police picked five empty shells from a foreign pistol at the crime scene when they got there with the deceased officers weapon lying on his chest.

The police officer who narrated the incident noted that he suspected it was a reprisal attack, explaining: “Three days ago our patrol team went to Tema and there [was] this group of young guys standing and smoking. The patrol team asked them to raise their arms for a search and one of them quickly removed a pistol and then shot an officer in the thigh. He wanted to flee but the policeman was sharp enough to remove his arm and shoot him. The others were able to run away and two foreign pistols were retrieved from the suspect shot by the injured officer. So looking at what happened you cannot say anything but a reprisal attack, I think, from those criminals… The guy was on his way to duty on a motorbike, how was he to anticipate that somebody would just accost him and fire at him?”

The body of the deceased has been deposited at the Police Hospital morgue.