Police decision not to engage Royal Motors robbers in gun battle is sound judgment- Quartey

A Deputy Interior Minister has described as sound judgment the decision by the police not to engage the Royal Motors armed robbers in a bloody shoot-out early this week.

Henry Quartey, who is also a Member of Parliament of Ayawaso Central says there would have been a bloodbath on the streets of Accra if the police had decided otherwise.

The robbers having succeeded in attacking the company and running away with an unspecified amount of money run into another vehicle, hijacked the vehicle and bolted with it.

There have been suggestions that police could easily have trapped the robbers in traffic and engaged them in a fierce exchange to immobilize them.

But speaking on Joy FM’s news analysis programme Newsfile, Saturday, Henry Quartey said the police were prudent in how they managed the situation in order to save lives.

At least two people have been killed in a bloody armed robbery attack last week. The first was a cashier at Delta Agro company who was trailed from a bank where he had gone to cash an amount of 200,000 cedis and was later shot in the head by the robbers.

In Obuasi, a woman who was on his way home from work was attacked by the robbers, had her bag snatched and later stabbed. She died shortly after.

Apart from the deaths, there have been other attacks on Forex Bureaus, and other attacks on residents in Oyibi, Kasoa by the robbers.

The attacks have triggered two emergency high profile national security meetings, one of which was headed by the Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia. The second was held by security chiefs all geared at finding a proper remedy for the increasing state of armed robbery attacks.

There have been some actions taken by the government, including a seven-prong action plan to fight the armed robbery attacked.




There has also been some reshuffle of the police chiefs to strategise.

Discussing the matter on Newsfile, Henry Quartey said while the recent cases of robberies are worrying the impression should not be created as if the country was in crisis.

“Armed robbery did not start yesterday” he said and cautioned against the politicize of crime in the country.

A security expert Adam Bonaa who was also on the show said crime patterns are evolving due to demographic changes and the country must take steps to counter these patterns.

“If we don’t act we will be devoured by the criminals,” he stated.

Source:Myjoyonline