Police in the Ashanti Region have shot and killed two siblings – Francis Gbeneh, 33 and Timothy Gbeneh, 28, – they mistook for armed robbers on Wednesday dawn.
Intriguingly, the deceased – a teacher and brother- and the police were on the same mission: responding to a distress call from a teacher at the Mampong Midwifery Training School at Mampong.
A female teacher of the school was said to have made the distress call after she was attacked by armed robbers.
The police have described the incident as “a very serious matter and unfortunate one for that matter”.
Public Relations Officer of the Ashanti Regional Police, ASP Mohammed Yusif Tanko noted that the regional command is “not happy at all” about the killing.
Giving insight into the incident, he said the police received a distress call that armed robbers have attacked a house within the school premises at about 2:00am Wednesday.
A patrol team was quickly dispatched to “quell the attack”, he told Joy Midday News .
When the team got to the scene, he recounted, they were informed that the robbers had taken a particular route so they decided to pursue them.
After negotiating a curve, the patrol team sighted two people who had mounted a motorbike and were speeding off, he said.
ASP Tanko said the team mistook the two to be the robbers and gave them a hot chase.
According to him, when the police closed up on the two, the one behind the rider tried turning while “holding something”. The scene appeared as a robber carrying a gun and about to shoot his target, so the patrol team decided to act instinctively by shooting down the two, he said.
But it later turned out that the two were also busily pursuing the same robbers the police were after, the police acknowledged.
ASP Tanko’s account was based on a brief the Regional Command received from the Divisional Command that sent out the patrol team.
The officers involved are yet to be interrogated, he said, assuring that when found culpable the “appropriate action would be taken against them”.
By editors.3news.com | Ghana
