Monrovia – Police over the weekend used teargas to disperse an angry mob in the Congo Town Back Road community after residents stormed through a Police operation officials say was meant to nap drug dealers.
Report by Mae Azango – [email protected]
Residents of the beachside community say they have experienced several incidents in the past when they woke up and saw dead bodies in the community, which also host a cemetery. Wary of such, they besieged two vehicles suspecting them of heart man activities on Saturday morning.
The situation happened some seven months after the disappearance and subsequent discovery of the dead body of former Managing Director of the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC) Harry Greaves on the beach in early February, sparking public outcry.
An autopsy report revealed that Greaves died of drowning but bulk of the public saw his death a murder, indicative of the vulnerability of the state of national security. It renewed calls for further stay of United Nations peacekeepers.
Another resident, Jason Johnson explained: “Around 7:30-8:00 p.m. last night, I saw an unknown car parked near our fence, and after 20 minutes I saw a white Hummer jeep driving on the beach and then after a few minutes, I heard our neighbors yelling from the beach and calling to say heart men were killing someone.
Johnson, in his 20s, said fellow residents came around and saw people in a small green car and a Hummer jeep and when they demanded to look into the car trunk, men he claimed wearing plain clothes with blood stain blood claiming to be Police officers said because of security reasons they could not allow the community to inspect the trunk of the green car.
“We called the nearest Zone #3 Police station, and the Police officers said they could not arrest their bosses. Our community called [the headquarters of the Liberian National Police.
When ERU officers came, they barricaded the road and started using pepper spray on us, so we all ran away because from what Liberia experienced in the past, we have to be afraid whenever we see people with guns.
We just have to be our own security because the situation we find ourselves in, we cannot trust the Police because we will lose our lives,” Johnson explained.
Police Spokesman Sam Collins confirmed that that the men on the Congo Town Back Road beach were detectives, urging the community to desist from such act as they in any case were not to take the law into their own hands.
“We normally deploy our intelligence officers to patrol Monrovia and its environs, so our intelligence officers were resting at a location on Congo Town Back Road when they received information that a canoe carrying drugs was headed to the back road community alongside the beach,” Collins told FrontPage Africa.
He said three people had been arrested that night on the Congo Town beach and placed in the Hummer jeep.
“At that time, the residents attacked the Police officers and got them wounded and these are things we will not condone or tolerate easily,” he added.
Calling the three wounded men to his office at the Capitol Bye-Pass headquarters of the Police, Collins claimed that indeed the men are intelligence officers of the LNP but they were falsely accused of killing and were brutalized by the suspicious residents.
“If the community has doubt about anybody, the best thing to do is restrict the movement of the person and call the officers of the LNP than getting involved with violence against the persons.
As it stands now, two of our officers who were victimized for nothing, took major stitches and so investigations continue because those who perpetrated this evil act against our officers will be brought to book.
“It is just a mere rumor that any girl was killed and I do not want to give it any credence,” Collins noted.
One of the plain clothes officers was wearing a bandage around his neck and the other on his forehead said they did not reach on the beach but stopped halfway and he was wounded on his head by a fellow on the beach and was given 14 stitches.
Holding up bloody underwear, he said his blood soaked the underwear during the incident, and that an elderly lady used his underwear to tie around his head to stop the bleeding.
The owners of a makeshift bar nearby the beach said they witnessed the unfortunate situation on the beach that night.
“I witnessed a white jeep [drove] on the beach and some unknown men jumped out and they were forcing a man, wearing a white African gown, out of the jeep.
They flashed the bright car lights in his face and started brutalizing and chocking the man to death,” says Arthur Johnson, a former operative of the disbanded Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU) residing on the beach.
Johnson, who claims to be one of the sons of the late ULIMO “J” leader Roosevelt Johnson, said when he witnessed the tussle on the beach, he then thought on what happened to the late Harry Greaves, whose body was found on the beach, so he decided to intervene in order to prevent such re occurrence.
“Yes I beat them to stop them from killing the man. We are tired seeing strange dead bodies most mornings on our beach because people usually bring dead bodies into our community overnight and dump them on our beach,” further admitted Johnson.
“When I reached the men and tried to stop them from killing the man whom they were chocking and pushing him into the water, one of the men shouted to another man and told him to bring his gun from the car to shoot me, so I started shouting for the community to come out because these men were about to kill me and this man wearing the white gown,” narrated Johnson.
“We are tired seeing strange dead bodies most mornings on our beach because people usually bring dead bodies into our community overnight and dump them on our beach.
So yes, I beat them, but they are blessed that I beat them because I am a trained killer and if I had the chance, I was going to kill them.”
Answering as to whether he knew he was beating Police officers, Johnson replied: “If they were Police officers as they claimed, why were they riding a Hummer jeep with an outdated license plate, and not a Police vehicle?
They looked too suspicious to be Police officers, because how much does a Police officer make to afford an expensive car like a Hummer jeep?
Again, they were behaving very [suspiciously] and [violently] that they nearly killed a man, instead of taking the man to the Police depot.”