By Septimus Senessie
In the afternoon of last week Friday there was chaos at the central business area in Koidu Town between commercial motorbike riders and police officers.
It left one of the motorbike riders suffering a bullet wound on the foot, the back windshield of the car of the Local Unit Commander of the Tankoro Police Division, Chief Superintendent David Sahid Koroma, broken and the police station attacked.
The bike riders say one Sergeant Koroma, an Operational Support Division (OSD) officer attached to the police station, fired a live bullet that wounded their colleague, Alhaji Jalloh, whose bike they say was hit by another one that the officer was riding, which sparked the chaos.
A three-day-sit-down strike by the riders followed the event, making transportation difficult for people in Koidu.
When he spoke after senior members of the community prevailed on them to resume operating, the Chairman of the Kono Bike Riders Union Mohamed Koroma explained that the factors that led to the strike action were based on the “shooting of the left foot” of their colleague rider. He said after that incident the police officer handcuffed Jalloh, failing to note that he was at fault. He said the bike riders who were present at the scene refused to let the officer take their colleague to the Tankoro Police Station.
He further explained that during the incident, the police fired his gun twice in the air leading to the aggravation of the entire situation.
“The officer did not only stop at that point, but he shot Alhaji Jalloh on his foot while he was handcuffed,” he furthered.
On June 7, this year similar event took place when another OSD officer attached to the Moteme Police Division, Constable ‘Jarul’ Jalloh, allegedly stoned another bike rider causing a complete damage to his eye at koyima Car Wash.
The riders’ chair condemned “police brutalities on riders plus their indiscriminate arrests.”
He however denied that his men beat up Sergeant Koroma, as alleged by the police.
The bike riders’ chief also warned his members to be calm and to respect the law.
In a mobile phone interview with Politico, the Eastern Regional Commander of Police, Assistant Inspector General Alfred Karrow Kamara, strongly condemned the “jungle justice of motor bike riders’’ and the “firing of life rounds by the OSD officer.”
He said they had instituted two committees of investigations, one comprising the local authorities in Kono District and the other containing members from the Kenema District CDIID and CID departments. He said they would be investigating five key things including: “the cause of the accident, the breaking of the windshield of the LUC, the discharge of live rounds by the police, the wounding of the rider and the assault on the police office.”
He stated that the two committees were tasked with one week of investigations on the matter and that whatever recommendations they would submit at the end of their investigations would be dealt with accordingly.
The Assistant Inspector General also said that under normal circumstances, where no mass raids on motor bikes and vehicles were declared, the controlling of the traffic and the arresting of the bike riders and drivers were purely the business of the traffic police and not the OSD officers.
(C) Politico 09/07/15
