Policeman shot dead in Ekiti

 

A police officer has been shot dead in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital.

It is understood that the deceased, attached to the Police Area Command in Ado Ekiti, was killed during a bloody fracas between policemen and protesters.

The deceased police officer got trapped in the melee when some protesters were being chased out within the premises of the station.

The protesters were said to have stormed the area command chanting war songs over the killing of a motorcyclist by a driver. They were also said to have been protesting the alleged seizure of the corpse and the paltry sum of N470,000 paid to the family of the deceased by the car owner.

The deceased’s family had allegedly demanded the money to enable them to transport the corpse to their country home, for burial.

“When the police failed to release the corpse and money allegedly collected from the driver to the family of the deceased person, the relatives stormed the police station in protest and demanded that the corpse and the money should be released,” The Nation reported quoting an unnamed source.

“Sensing that the protest was becoming violent, the police fired teargas canisters and gunshots to scare them. In the process, stray bullets hit a policeman in the leg, who later bled to death in the hospital”.

However, the Police Public Rations Officer, Ekiti Command, ASP Sunday Abutu, said the police are still investigating who actually fired the shot that killed the policeman.

“It was true that the police allowed the driver and the deceased’s family to negotiate and the driver agreed to pay a sum of N440,000, which had been paid to the family of the deceased.

“But out of that money, it was agreed that a sum of N150,000 should be paid to the bike owner. It was this the protesters heard and stormed the police station in anger that our men were trying to cheat them. The owner of the motorcycle has not even been paid at all.

“As they were brandishing dangerous weapons and requesting that the detainee be released to them, the police fired teargas canisters to scare them. But to the police’s surprise, they saw that gunshots were coming from different directions and one of our men was hit in the process and died.

“It was hasty and wrong that it was the police that fired the shot that killed one of them. We are still investigating”, he said.