Early this week, the Ghana Police Service shot and killed three suspected armed robbers who had planned to attack and rob a businessman who was to withdraw money from a bank around Airport. Two of their accomplices were also arrested. Unfortunately, around the same time, a security guard was killed by another group of armed robbers in the Volta Region.
Armed robbery attacks in recent times seem to have been brought under control. Not many cases had been heard since the unfortunate Jamestown incident that led to the death of a young police constable and a civilian. This was due to the measures put in place by the Ghana Police Service to deal with the menace in the country.
The speed with which the Police arrested some armed men who were tormenting innocent Ghanaians, including a young pregnant police lady in the Tamale, seemed to have built confidence in the men and women in black.
Not deterrent enough
Unfortunately, it does appear that the arrests of many of the armed men by the Police and the sentences from our law lords have not been deterrent enough. Pocket of armed robbery cases have still been recorded in recent times. These are aside from the many homicide cases involving spouses and several others.
Murder cases, in recent times, even appear to have become more common in the news than petty theft, assault and battery that the country knew in times past.
Right decision
That is why we commend the Ghana Police Service for the swift action taken to foil the Airport attack. This comes at the back of similar incidence a fortnight ago in which the Police foiled another attack and shot and killed two armed men from Ashaiman who had trailed their prey all the way to Amasaman.
Since it appears the only language that these bandits understand is shooting, we can only part the Police at the back for taking the war to the zone of the robbers.
Every life matters, and so we at the Daily Statesman would not want to encourage the taking of lives of people arbitrarily by law enforcement officers. But, we cannot also encourage bloodthirsty young men to go round with guns and display their power on innocent citizens, engage in shootouts with the Police and expert them to serve them a bouquet of flowers on a platter.
The Police have a duty to protect the citizenry from bad people, and if eliminating the bad people is the best way to protect the citizenry then we can only urge them on.
With the retooling of the Ghana Police Service by the government, we expect them to live up to expectation, and that is why we call on all Ghanaians to support them in this their new style of handling the bandits.
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