Monrovia – Family, friends and sympathizers of the late Francis Mensah on Tuesday, June 9, staged a peaceful protest at the Headquarters of the Liberia National Police (LNP) in Monrovia, demanding justice for the death of their son.
Francis Mensah, 3, was allegedly killed by a police officer while enforcing the State of Emergency (SOE) declared by President Weah on April 10.
The incident that led to the death of the late Mensah took place in the West Point community, where police had gone to enforce the lockdown.
On Tuesday, protesters, most family and community members, were seen chanting, “We want justice!!!! We want justice”. They were also carrying placards with the different inscriptions: “We want justice!!!! Francis Mensah needs Justice!!!!!”.
After about 15 minutes of chanting and battle crying, the Inspector General of the Liberia National Police (LNP), Col. Patrick Sudue arrived on the scene and received a petition from the aggrieved family.
Presenting the petition to the police boss, the uncle of the late three-year-old boy, George C. Davies said the investigation report of the LNP, which indicts the family of the deceased for his death is very disheartening.
“The premature release of findings and the attitude of the LNP reinforces the family’s suspicion of an attempt to cover up an act of police brutality and assault on an innocent child,” Davis said.
“The family has learned that the LNP is planning, as part of the devilish plan, to charge the family with murder in an attempt to scare them. This will not scare us. We will continue to advocate for the rights of Francis, our son until Justice is served.”
Davies further stated that the family needs Independent investigators to probe their son’s death.
“The information the police gave to the public is not true, it’s misleading from the investigation point. We are saying that, we don’t need any police investigation, we need independent investigators from outside so we are urging our government to give us independent investigators to investigate this matter because we have lost confidence in the police.”
In response, Col. Sudue said the preliminary findings contain in the report released by the LNP were conducted by the Professional Standards Division (PSD), adding that the PSD did not link any officer to the murder of the late Mensah.
He added that investigation is continuing at the Crimes Service Department (CSD) of the LNP.
“We will definitely look into your petition,” he said. “If the police officer was held culpable, definitely we were going to turn the officer over to the CSD and the officer was going to be prosecuted there but the report from the PSD did not hold the officer culpable but it does not end the case there so the recommendation was the case being transfer to the CSD to look into the criminal aspect of the case to see what was the cause for this little child been burned that led to his demise.”
On April 28, little Mensah died when boiled water allegedly spilled on his body by an unidentified officer of the LNP, who the family said was enforcing the lockdown in the Township of West Point.
The boy was later rushed to the John F. Kennedy Hospital (JFK) but died five days after he was admitted.