Police arrest five officers after ‘stray bullet hit’ teenager in Plateau

The Plateau state police command has arrested five officers after a stray bullet hit a 17-year-old boy during an Okada ban enforcement in Jos, the state capital.

NAN reports that Alfred Alabo, the state police spokesperson, announced the arrest in a statement on Monday.

In an attempt to enforce the ban on the operation of commercial motorcycles in the state, Alabo said police officers visited the Terminus Market and started chasing those illegally operating.

While pursuing the offenders, the police officers started shooting and a stray bullet hit Ibuchim Ofezie, the 17-year-old who was sitting in his shop at the market.

Alabo said Bartholomew Onyeka, the state commissioner of police condemned the incident and assured that the officers involved would be sanctioned after a proper investigation.

”The command condemned the killing of one Mr Ibuchim Ofezie, a resident of Agingi Community of Bassa Local Government Area, by some obdurate police patrol operatives attached to our ‘C’ Division,” NAN quoted the spokesperson as saying.

”The police commissioner, who described the incident as a paradox, asserted that police officers are empowered by law to bear firearms to protect the lives of the citizenry and not to take lives with them.

”In order to ensure that the erring patrol team does not evade justice, the commissioner has immediately ordered their arrest.

”The five personnel in the patrol team have been arrested and are currently being investigated at our homicide section of the criminal investigation department (SCID) of the command,” he said.

According to NAN, Alabo said justice would be served and that the outcome of the investigation would be made public.