Six Policemen Arrested Over Killing In Nigeria's Lagos State

Six policemen arrested over killing in Nigeria's Lagos state

 LAGOS, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Six policemen in the Nigeria police force have been arrested in Nigeria's economic hub, Lagos State, following the killing of a 40-year-old man, Semiu Murtala, in his car on Saturday, according to the Lagos-based Punch newspaper reports on Tuesday.

    The deceased was said to be returning from a soccer practice onS aturday and was racing to beat the 7 a.m. local time commencement of the state monthly environmental sanitation exercise, when he was killed.

    According to the newspaper report, the trigger-happy policemen attached to the Idimu police station, a suburb area in Lagos, were said to be on patrol when the gory incident happened.

    Police authorities in the state had ordered the divisional police officer at Idimu, to fish out the culprits.

    It is learnt that a protest by youths in the area followed the dastardly act before the monarch in the area, Samson Balogun, intervened.

    Mallam Abdullah, the divisional police officer at Idimu, said all the policemen in the team that allegedly killed Murtala had been identified and ordered to be detained at the station.

    The spokesman for the Lagos State Police Command, Frank Mba, confirmed the arrest of the errant policemen, noting the police will surely make a discrete investigation into the matter.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/04/content_8308812.htm

men read this article in punch as well,its a sad stuff
a life wasted like that,but men the guy could have at least stopped
why was he running when he didnt carry cocaine or guns?
at times self we kill ourselves with the moves we make, am sure he wouldnt have been shot
if he had waited and expalined that he is trying to beat the timeline for enviromental,
worst thing they would arrest him for that day or delay him or something other than kill him.

well those policefoolsmen deserved to be punished sha,their fingers can get so itchy at times due to lack of something to shoot at.

What happened to rule of law ?? How long are these men going to be detained for??

@SENATORJD, were they arrested because they are not above the law or arrested because there was a mob vying for their blood? Make the distiction, this kind of thing happens a lot, someone runs to the police station during mob action because they want protection not because they will be prosecuted. I believe it is more likely that they were detained for their own protection. If these police officers are dealt with, as far as i know it would be an exception to the rule. What about the police officers who shot at a taxi driver in Port Harcourt because the guy would not give them 20Naira. The bullet missed the guy and hit a pregnant lady and the lady died. Can you believe that? Because of 20Naira. Again, these are not one off, they happen in Nigeria. If care is not taking then when all the commotion dies down these officers will just be let loose. I think it is vital that these officers are prosectuted, if a mob is needed to make it happen then so be it. A precedence needs to be set.

@skyblue, i aint in support of what they did oo,because it was totally nonsense,i have almost lost a friend when they shot at a  their car because it refused to stop where they wanted it to stop.one might say they were only arrested because of the mob,well true very true lets believe somethong good would come out of it and it wont just die down after some time.yes they should be prosecuted and given the appropriate sanction because what the did was totally wrong.

i have lived a greater percentage of my life in lagos  and i HATE the police with a passion,because we have a percentage of them that doesn't think,i have bin stopped and asked ridiculous questions in lagos, have had  rides have driven almost bashed because of their recklessnes while driving,i have bin harrased by one at one point in time, so am permitted to HATE some of them.

as much as one would blame the police totally for firing at the victim,one has to realize like i wrote earlier
of blessed memory to him i feel he should have waited to explain or say something,ordinarily in any country if the Police/military should flag u down at any point in time while driving and u speed off without stopping,automatically u have triggered a suspicion on your path about something(shooting is not the right thing to do doe) but really one can't blame them for any action they take against u,lets be sincere with ourselves the police have a huge blame because some officers are indisciplined and lack wisdom but that guy was wrong to have sped off.

@SKYBLUE first question how many articles on this piece did u read?obviously one of it which was
SIX POLICEMEN ARRESTED OVER KILLING
By Kunle Adeyemi
Tuesday Punch June 3 2008
page 12.

did u read the one that preceded it?no u didnt, because if u did u wont be asking me stupid questions?

POLICE BRUTALITY CLAIMS ONE LIFE IN LAGOS
By Mudiga Afe
Sunday Punch JUNE 1 2008
page 13

paragraph 3: An eye witness said d victim was being pursued in his dark green NISSAN Xterra jeep marked BF54EPE by two policemen on a motorcycle.
Q:@ skyblue do u pursue anything that is not moving?

Paragraph 8: Another witness said that Murtala(d deceased) and Gani left the school to beat the 7am-10am environmental sanitation of lagos state government,but were stopped at okunola bus-stop by a team of policemen.
Paragraph 9: he said that after they(murtala and gani) refused to stop the policemen opened fire on the vehicle shattering the rear windscreen while they pursued the car to the next bus stop (orelope) on idinmu road from where another bullet was released which piecered through the left backdoor hitting the driver.
Q: again i ask do u pursue anything that is not moving? if they stopped would they have been pursued from one bus stop to another?

@Sky blue pleassssssssssssss get your facts straight before u argue,because obviously u didnt know about the first article,
what the policemen did was totally wrong and deserved to be punished and charged for it but the guys were not totally right were they?except we discard the papers report that said they didnt stop.maybe the papers are lying?
Need I say more?I don't think so