Crime & Punishment of Saturday, 20 May 2006

Source: GNA

Driver, mate assault two police officers

Cape Coast, May 20, GNA-Two police officers with the Central Region branch of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) were on Friday, reportedly assaulted, by a driver of a Nissan Urvan bus and his mate, when they were arrested for picking passengers at an unauthorized place at Tantri, a suburb of Cape Coast.

When the GNA visited the offices of the MTTU, it found that the two officers, a man and a woman whose names have been withheld had bruises on their faces, hands and knees, while the police woman's face, was swollen. They had been treated and discharged at the Central Regional hospital.

Briefing the GNA about the incident, Superintendent Charles Oduro, Regional Commander of the MTTU, said the two officers were on duty at Tantri, when the woman spotted the bus with registration number CR 91 Q, picking up passengers in a curve, and ordered the driver to move. He said the driver ignored the order and rather moved just a bit forward, to pick more passengers, and it was at that juncture, that she called her colleague to join her in the vehicle in a bid to arrest the driver.

Superintendent Oduro said they asked the driver to drive to the MTTU office, but the driver stopped on the way, and rushed on the police man while his mate also held the woman, and punched her and pushed her out of the vehicle and dragged her on the floor. He said her colleague, was also punched, his hands twisted and also pushed out of the bus, and they bolted, abandoning the vehicle, which has been impounded.