On Wednesday May 6, 2020, some incensed youth of Adabraka Sahara besieged their local police station to dump the dead body of their colleague on the counter (counterback) of the station.
This was after their colleague who was being pursued by a police officer drowned in the Odaw drain after jumping in the water to escape arrest.
Detailing the events of Wednesday in an interview with GhanaWeb, the Divisional Commander of Nima, ACP Abraham Akwei, said his outfit received an SOS call around 7:00 pm that day that the Adabraka police station was under attack by a group of irate youth in the area.
"We were there yesterday (May 6, 2020) when we had an SOS call that our police station, that's the Adabraka police station, was under a serious attack. They (the youth of Adabraka Odawna) had brought a dead body, dumped the dead body on the counter and assaulted the personnel on duty…the people were incensed that it was because of the presence of the police man. They thought maybe he was coming to effect arrest so they subjected this police man to a severe beating and he sent an SOS call to his colleagues. So two of them came to his rescue. They were able to extricate him and brought him to the police station," He said.
Revealing further details on the attack on the police station, ACP Akwei said the youth numbering over 500, after retrieving the dead body of their colleague from the river, stormed the police station to deposit the body on the counter at the charge office at the station and ended up assaulting officers on duty while causing damages to properties on the premises.
“…Unfortunately, the police officers who were present at the charge office tried to calm them down and that would not work. So they ended up assaulting the police officers, they beat them up mercilessly and also caused damage to the service vehicles,” He added.
ACP Akwei told GhanaWeb that his outfit upon receiving an SOS on the attack at the police station deployed men from the division and the region to the station but only met the presence of the abandoned dead body on the counter at the charge office.
The body was then retrieved and sent to the police hospital morgue for preservation whiles the charge office was locked up until it was thoroughly disinfected to prevent any contamination and infection.
According to the ACP, a follow up on the incidents of the night led to the arrest of 3 persons while a subsequent follow up investigations on the crime scene the next morning led to the invitation of another person, who claimed to be an eye witness, for questioning.
When GhanaWeb earlier spoke to some of the residents of Adabraka-Odawna, including eye witnesses, they described their colleague as being innocent of any crime.
To them, the scare of their colleague upon seeing the policeman and his subsequent drowning in the Odawna River qualifies as another form of police injustice on a civilian.
But reacting to the accusations against the police service, ACP Abraham Akwei of the Nima division described the Adabraka Odawna neighbourhood as a hub for hardened criminals and drug peddling.
According to him, the victim could have saved himself from the tragedy as he could have chosen to act differently.
He stressed that the police remains committed to investigating the incident and will ensure anyone found to have broken the law is brought to book
