Robbers kill policeman… injure 2 cops, 2 others

pA police personnel stationed at the Mankessim Divisional Police Command, Lance Corporal Kingsley Boahen, was shot dead by some armed robbers in the early hours of yesterday.

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), James Oppong Boanuh, has announced a reward of GH₵ 10,000 to any person, who provides credible information that would lead to the arrest of suspected armed robbers who shot and killed the policeman at about 4.30am.

Two other police personnel, who were part of a patrol team that had engaged the armed robbers earlier around 2am, sustained injuries during the exchanges.

The late police personnel was off duty at the time, and he was also not in his police uniform when he was shot about 200 metres from a fuel filling station.

The shooting follows an earlier shoot-out between the police and some armed robbers around 12am, during a robbery attack on the ZEN fuel station at Mankessim.

 Briefing journalists, the Central Regional Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Irene Oppong, explained that, the police received a distress call of a robbery activity at a fuel station at Mankessim around 2 am.

She said the patrol team proceeded to the scene and the robbers on seeing the police started firing at them (police).

DSP Oppong indicated that, the patrol team also started firing at the armed robbers.

She said, a reinforcement team was called to beef up the strength of the police in order to apprehend the armed robbers.

“Two police personnel, who were part of the police patrol team”, DSP oppong said, sustained injuries in the exchange of fire between the police and the armed robbers.

She said that the armed robbers on seeing the reinforcement team scaled the wall at the filling station and fled into a nearby bush.

DSP Oppong said that around 4:30am the police had another call that a person had been shot close to the filling station. When the police proceeded to the scene, the team realised that it was their colleague who had been shot.

She indicated that the police would leave no stone unturned in arresting the perpetrators, adding that he body of the late Lance Corporal Boahen had been deposited at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital morgue for autopsy.

FROM DAVID O. YARBOI-TETTEH, CAPE COAST