IS CURBING ARMED ROBBERY PROVING A HEADACHE FOR THE LIBERIA NATIONAL POLICE?

News: by Sayor E. Wahtoson Oct 27

: Army robbery victim

All across the world a civil war often leaves behind many bitter experiences in countries it occurs. Among these bitter experiences is armed robbery. This is the problem that Liberia has been grappling with both during and after its civil war that lasted for fourteen years. Successive governments during this period tried to stamp out armed robbery but with little success. Even the current government appears to be having a real headache at curbing the crime despite the presence of a multinational UN Peace Keeping Force with modern state of the art weaponry with which they back up the Liberia National police. In the early years of the current government, armed robbery became a common place so much so that the government quickly trained 2 groups of an elite force of the police to help combat this and other crimes such as rioting and drug trafficking. These 2 elite groups, Police Special Unit (PSU), and Emergency Response Unit (ERU) went on the offensive against armed robbery to the extent that it gave the impression of success. This apparently made the Chief of Police to announce just less than 2 weeks ago that the rate of armed robbery has been reduced significantly by police; and that armed robbery has effectively become nothing to write home about.

But Mark Ambla, the Chief of the Liberia National Police was wrong. Barely 3 days after his pronouncement, armed robbers struck in a community south of Monrovia. The Public Hand Pump or PHP Community, for short, is an overcrowded community just on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean south of Monrovia, and it is sandwiched by the Barclay Training Center, BTC formerly the headquarters of the Armed Forces of Liberia and the Monrovia Central Prison, best known as South Beach. The BTC is so modernized by the Americans that it now houses the Ministry of Defense. The near by South Beach Prison is heavily guarded by armed state security personnel. It was early Sunday morning at about 2: am 17 October when a band of armed robbers struck in the area and forcibly entered the homes of 2 women. One of them, Oretha Wilson, told reporters that the robbers, 9 in all with 3 of them armed with AK-47 assault raffles, told her not to resist or even alarm if she wanted to save hers as well as the lives of her children. “So, my children and I just looked on as they robbed us”, she narrated her ordeal sobbingly. Oretha, a merchant in this slum community, lost two thousand US Dollars in cash and goods worth over three hundred thousand US Dollars.

Theresa Davies, another victim of the robbers and a neighbor of Madam Wilson also told reporters that the robbers took away from her seven hundred US Dollars and seven mobile phones. She also is a business woman. Police eventually came to the rescue of the women after the robbers had left. While this group of armed robbers was terrorizing these residents in PHP, another band of robbers struck in the north of the city just at about the same time. Front Street in Monrovia is another crowded community. Here the robbers forced their way into a roomy house and mounted an attack on the occupants. One the tenants in this house, Constance Williams, told “Liberia My Turn” that the house has electricity, thanks to the partial power being supplied to parts of Monrovia by the Liberia Electricity Corporation, LEC, a state owned entity. But upon entering the house, Constance narrated, the robbers blew up the bulbs that illuminated the corridor; to prevent them being identified by anybody else, before going from room to room robbing occupants. Constance further narrated that upon realizing that armed robbers had entered the house, occupants began shouting, at the top of their voice, for help. But everyone soon fell silent when the robbers threatened to kill anyone who would not stop shouting.

He mentioned that there are 9 rooms in the house; and that his is at the extreme end of the building. And before they could reach him he tried to call in the police using his mobile phone. But Constance soon realized that immediate help was not in coming. “So I decided to resist, putting up a rather suicidal fight in the dark”, he continued. The robbers, he said, were armed with silent weapons such as cutlasses, sticks, ion bars and other machetes. “I said a short silent prayer and made the sign of the Holy Cross”, he said. By this time the men had reached his room. Then the fighting began. “I miraculously seized a cutlass from one of them and used it the fight”, he continued. According Constance, the fighting lasted for 45 long minutes and he won, but at a high price. The robbers inflicted severe wounds to his head, hand and left eye. It is now half blind. They dispossessed him of his valuables along with the other tenants. Constance further narrated that the robbers apparently gave up the fight because of severe wounds he inflicted on 3 of them.

When asked how did he know that he wounded three of them since in deed the place was dark, he said he struck aimlessly, and for each time he threw his cutlass and hit, someone screamed and ran out. On how he thinks his valuables were stolen since in deed he had the upper hand in the fight, Constance said it was probable that other members of the gang that didn’t take part in the fight may have sneaked in his room while the battle was going on and made away with his belongings. The police eventually arrived on the scene, but not before the robbers had left. The police then took Constance to a hospital where he was given first aid treatment. With left eye half blind and now in pains, Constance Williams has since fled his home for fear the men would come back again. Another reported case of armed robbery occurred in Logan Town, west of Monrovia, on Thursday night, 4 days following the 2 events at PHP and Front Street. This area is a large and densely populated slum. The robbers forced their way into the home of a computer science teacher (name with held). This teacher narrated to “Liberia My Turn” that the robbers mercilessly beat him and other men they found in the house while their wives and children helplessly looked on.

The teacher further mentioned that his troubles became worse when the robbers, while searching for loots, discovered a pair of police uniform. The teacher’s wife is a member of national police force. Even when the lady told them that her husband was not a police officer; and that the pair of uniform belongs to her, they didn’t listen, instead, they shouted, “You will bear the weight. We are not here to do bad to women”. The robbers then fled thescene making away with 5 laptop computers from the house. 2 of these belonged to the poor teacher while the others belonged to other occupants. Police eventually arrived on the scene, but again not before the robbers had fled. When this reporter raised, with police authorities, the issue of the often late arrival of police on crime scenes, especially in slum communities, a source explained that the problem was quite complex. Basic among these are the following: that these slum communities are very congested.

There are no passages left for vehicles to drive through. Even when police, responding to a distress call, try to go on foot they encounter too many mix-shift structures in the way, couple with their not being too familiar with the terrain, especially at night. Another problem is that these slums are also inhabited by these criminals, many of whom are drug addicts; and that most residents refuse to cooperate with the police for fear of reprisals from criminals. The source further explained that even the Community policing Forum Campaign set up by the police and UNMIL Security doesn’t seem to be yielding any fruitful results for exactly this reason….FEAR OF REPRISALS.

Sayor E. Wahtoson, Liberia MyTurn’s correspondent in Liberia.
Copyright © 2010 LIB MyTurn. All rights reserved.

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