Cop Holds Hotel Guests Hostage

Staff and guests of the Accra City Hotel (formerly Novotel) were last Tuesday night reportedly held captive by a lone policeman who seized the facility.

Threatening to shoot anybody who dared to call his bluff, he was able to seize the hotel for over three hours, different police personnel failing to disarm him when they were deployed to the scene.

Information available to DAILY GUIDE has it that Cpl Wadzah who is stationed at the Jamestown Police Station, turned up for duty at the hotel on night shift.

As if possessed, he was said to have seized the facility late Tuesday night, preventing both entry and exit, causing maximum fear and panic among the staff and guests.

Some airline crew were said to have suffered delay in moving out to the airport as a result of the hold-up which ended towards the early hours of Wednesday.

A patrol team was ordered to go and disarm Cpl Wadzah but upon reaching the place, he reportedly warned the officers that they risked being shot.

Failing to achieve its objective, the team left the scene for a Special Weapons and Tactical (SWAT) squad to be replaced by a Counter-Terrorism Unit squad.

The mission was not a cut-and-dry affair: a frontal engagement was not advisable and so the very dangerous cop held sway for more hours as the commander and his men thought out a means of overpowering and disarming him.

Eventually, one of the men went up the ceiling and descended upon the cop who reportedly fired his weapon but the firearm did not respond due to a malfunction.

As soon as he descended upon him, members of the squad rushed to overpower and disarm the cop.

The police are tight-lipped about the incident but DAILY GUIDE has learnt that the cop, who appeared to be suffering from a mental challenge, was sent to a psychiatric hospital at Pantang for examination, the outcome of which is not available to this paper at the time of filing this report.

Some colleagues of the cop at the Jamestown barracks have confided to DAILY GUIDE that his demeanor at home bespeaks of someone harbouring a mental challenge.

In July this year, a certain L/Cpl William Amuzu of the Tema Regional Police Command's Rapid Response Unit reportedly killed his mother-in-law, two children and committed suicide, using his service rifle.

It was a news story which shocked Ghanaians when it landed on the public domain with the pictures of the gory scene worsening the situation.

Following the development, the police administration demanded of its commanders to be observant about the mental health of personnel and acting swiftly when abnormalities are observed.

It is however, not clear if that directive has been carried out.

 By A.R. Gomda