Police arrest gun-wielding young men from viral video
The three men who were seen wielding guns in a viral video uploaded shortly after the June 14 bullion van attack have been picked up by police in the Ashanti Region.
A fourth suspect who was also seen in the video is currently being hunted down by the police, who have urged the public to volunteer any information that would help their investigations.
Speaking to the press, the Deputy Ashanti Regional Police Commander, DCOP David Agyemang Adjem revealed that the arrested persons have been “variously described as robbers in both the print and radio, as well as on social media.”
He added that “these three men are in our custody in relation to the video and pictures we have seen. We have retrieved the pump action, as you can see. There is a fourth suspect whom we are trying to also arrest.”
The men were identified in a video that went viral shortly after reports broke on Monday of a robbery attack on a bullion van around Jamestown in Accra. The attack resulted in the death of a police officer aboard the van and a bystander. Social media quickly went awash with calls for the arrests of the boys, with some users linking the men in the video with the robbery attack.
Another such bullion van attack was reported on Thursday afternoon, barely seventy-two hours after the first incident. This attack was however foiled when the policeman aboard the van ordered the driver to speed off after the robbers fired at the front passenger seat, while he radioed for reinforcement. Police from the Winneba Police Patrol team was deployed to the Mpata junction where a gun battle quickly erupted before the robbers fled.
DCOP Agyemang Adjem has meanwhile indicated that the police will keep the arrested men from the video in custody.
“They have denied as you have seen in other videos that they are not criminals, and so the Command would like to appeal to anybody, for that matter the public, especially those who allege any criminal activity against these young men to come forward, give us information so that we can put them before the court,” he told journalists.
The men had earlier recorded another video where they indicated that they were not robbers but had only recorded the video to scare off invaders who attack them on the fields where they ply their trade as illegal miners.