Bloody Tuesday

Little Moses Kasim, 11 and an adult fell yesterday, having had their lives cut short by live rounds from internal security agents' AK47s in another bungled crowd control procedure by the Police.

This is not the first time that Ghana has had to mourn the death of her citizens through such occurrences.

The Dansoman incident is still fresh in the minds of the bereaved families as are others involving policemen killing each other.

We are pained at the avoidable development which could have been obviated had certain crowd control procedures been followed.
The Police do not have a good track record of handling such missions without casualties.

The average policeman is always angry, a mood which reflects in the manner in which they react to situations. Attempt explaining to a cop that you did not mean to breach the law and that your action was inadvertent, and you would understand what we are driving at.

Modern technology has bestowed on the world non-lethal approaches to crowd control management, and so for such a sad development to be added to the catalogue of previous morbid stories is not only sad but a pointer to another failed mission on the part of the Police.

Little Moses, who was looking forward to turning up at school after completing his daily chore, was wrong. A Police bullet was waiting to pierce through his head and snuff life out of his young body. (See front page story).

Sadly, Mr. Kudalor had no commiserating words for the despicable action of his men, preferring to state that “there is no regret for the deadly action. My men acted in self-defence. The drivers would have over-run the Police Station.”

What does he mean gloating over his feat at preventing what he said could have been worse than what happened? Two lives were lost, one a little innocent and brilliant boy, and Kudalor wants us to believe that he did a good job as a Divisional Commander.

Even if the Police Station was under the attack of rampaging drivers, what stopped the personnel from engaging the hot water canon and other non-lethal approaches to handling the unruly behaviour?

The Police has always gotten away with such inhuman handling of situations and the earlier something is done about obviating future recurrence, the better it would be for us as a country.

Already, members of the public have an eroded confidence in the Police and such developments would only serve to further distance the people from the Police.

The picture from the scene of action depicts a typical Nigerian movie action, with trigger-happy cops touting their AK47s ready to fire live ammo onto a rampaging crowd. Shoving aside the canisters of teargas and holding on to AK47s with the safety catches set at ready is not the best.

The training manual of recruits needs a revision and in fact some Divisional Commanders.

We wonder if the Police take any serious lessons in fire control orders as is the case in the military.

Had the policemen who engaged the rampaging drivers been under the command of a commander who was responsible for yelling orders to shoot or not to and the like, the situation could not have been as bad.

That the cops did not appreciate the unfolding situation itself is a minus on their ability to manage security breaches.

The moment the situation warranted the setting up of barricades, operations units like the Armoured Car Squadron or even the Mounted Squadron should have been called in.

Much as we condemn the action of the drivers who should not have taken the law into their hands, we condemn the Police, especially the Tema Divisional Police Commander in his handling of the situation.

We call for a probe into the despicable development and pray that the soul of Moses rest in peace and that of the driver.

A situation in which there is a proclivity on the part of the Police to shoot to kill is diabolic and unbecoming of a modern day internal security managers.

Let the Police Administration go shopping for non-lethal materials like hot pepper spray and more hot water cannon including electric truncheons among many others. Shame unto the killer and the drivers who started it all.