ON TUESDAY, APRIL 17, at a press conference, Cllr Frank Musa Dean, Minister of Justice and head of the Joint Security Committee, tried to list a number of serious criminal activities in certain parts of the country. Most of what the Justice Minister named occurred in the Monrovia area.
AFTER NAMING THOSE MALICIOUS acts, including murders, he tried to calm the nerves that the Committee is going to do everything within its power to keep Liberians and foreign nationals residing within our borders safe at all times.
THE JOINT SECURITY COMMITTEE comprises the Liberia National Police (LNP), Liberia Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA), Liberia Immigration Service (LIS), National Fire Service (NFS) and National Security Agency (NSA).
THE JUSTICE MINISTER tried to state how actively they are engaged with the efforts of making sure that communities’ residents are safe.According to Justice Minister Dean, they are determined to ensure that people live in peace and without fear.
TOUCHING ON THE mysterious death of Journalist Tyron Browne, Cllr. Dean said police officers responded to the call when the body was discovered.
“UPON ARRIVING, LNP found an unconscious male, later identified as Tyron Browne. He was later pronounced dead at the Benson Medical Hospital. The body has been deposited at the Abraham Roberts Funeral Home,” he disclosed.
HE ALSO MENTIONED John David, the man, who is seen in the Sime Darby tortured video, which has gone viral on the Internet in Liberia.
THE JUSTICE MINISTER DISPELLED rumors of the death of the victim also circulating on social media.
He also mentioned Ms. Princess Dwalo and Hansan Kanneh, who were found in their room with wounds; and sadly, Princess was pronounced dead while Hansan had extensive wound to his private part.
CLLR. DEAN ALSO TALKED about Emmanuel Tarpeh, a resident of Johnsonville, who was reported missing on April 9, 2018. He disclosed that a search by the Liberian National Police (LNP) revealed that Tarpeh was killed and buried in an unmarked grave; adding: “One person has been arrested and investigation is underway.”
ANOTHER SECURITY THREAT, the Justice Minister mentioned was Madam Joyce Otujawheh, a resident of ELWA, who was brutally murdered at her residence, a day after she celebrated her birth anniversary on March 24, 2018.
THESE ARE JUST FEW OF the security threats that the Justice Minister could probably lay his hands on to speak about to journalists. Imagine, most of them are occurrences just in the Monrovia area.
THERE ARE MANY OTHER bad things happening out there that probably the Joint Security Committee has not been able to hear about or have heard about them and just not capacitated enough to reach to those places in most parts of the country.
SO, THE LIST OF THOSE heinous crimes goes on.
WE THINK BECAUSE THERE are probably too many crimes to be happening in a relatively small locality that prompted the Joint Security Committee to call the press conference to tell Liberians, through the media, what interventions that they are making in order to ensure that lives are safe at all times.
MINISTER, THIS CAN’T go on and on only to go back to status quo anti with the usual rhetoric of “an investigation has been launched” or “a committee has been setup to probe the incident;” or “the suspects are undergoing interrogation by the LNP;” or “the suspects are at large.”
WE THANK YOU SO FAR FOR your intervention of intensifying patrols in crimes infested neighborhoods and for also asking the general public to report any suspicious activities within their communities to local law enforcement officers.
MAY WE REPEAT, MR. JUSTICE MINISTER, this can’t go on and on as it has been in the past.
Many doubted that Liberians are capable of handling their own security issues in the wake of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) withdrawal at the end of March 2018.
ONE FELLOW REMARKED: “Puaaah, UNMIL was here and big big fishes were killed and their bodies found on beaches nothing meaningful came out of them only for the government to set up useless committees or commissions to eat for nothing money. You think anything good is going to come out of all the recent mysterious killings in Liberia now, especially when our own security in our hands?”
MINISTER, THIS IS the tune of a rightfully frustrated Liberian, who doesn’t want “business as usual,” like this newspaper.
HARRY GREAVES, MICHAEL ALLISON, Victoria Zayzay, etc, were all murdered in cold blood and all the previous administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf could do was to set up those useless commissions that never produced any fruitful results; only the same thing — “drowning” as in the case of Mr. Greaves and Mr. Allison.
WE ARE ASKING YOU TO PUT your foot down and make sure that most of these murder cases, especially the ones that are somewhat ‘mysterious’ are concluded logically so that people can start having faith in our security sector yea the government.
THE AIR IS TENSE; PEOPLE ARE AFRAID. We know that when you put politics aside and do what is right BY the people, FOR the people and OF the people, Liberians will begin to sing again: “Oh Sweet Liberia, Land of Liberty…”