A young man in his early 40, yesterday escaped death as an unidentified police officer attached to Area E Police Station, Festac Town, Lagos corked gun on him and threatened to shoot him.
Trouble started when the man in question, driving in his Toyota RAV4, was flagged down by the said officer who alongside his colleagues were manning a checkpoint along Durbar Road in Festac area of the state.
While the owner of the vehicle was maneuvering through the built up traffic as a result of the check point to park his vehicle, the said police officer hit and broke his side mirror.
Angered by the action of the police officer, the man jumped out of his car and charged at the Police Officer who immediately corked his gun, pointing it at the man and threatened to shoot him if he dare come close to him.
On seeing the unfolding drama, the passers by who saw what happened raised their voices in protest to the police officer’s action and wanted to mob him and subsequently snatch his gun from him.
It took the intervention of his colleagues and some well to do individuals around the scene to arrest the situation thereby averting blood letting in the area.
Speaking to our correspondent, the victim who spoke on the condition of anonymity called on the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, CP Abiodun Alabi to always ascertain the mental health of officers before deploying them to mount check points.
His words, “The Commissioner of Police should look into this and find the Police Officer and discipline him. The Police Officer involved has corked his gun to shoot . Are you shooting a criminal? I left the scene because if I allow those boys, they will mob the police officer and take his gun from him. You can see that they were already ganging up to attack them because what they did was wrong.
“They (police authorities) should be checking their mental status before employing them. I don’t want to take someone’s job but the the DPO or the Area Commander should be sure that those they send on the road are people who are mentally stable and not the ones that would block the express and abuse innocent people because you are bearing arms.
“The person parked when you flagged him down and not that he argued with you over anything, the next thing, you went and broke his side mirror. You are doing so for him to react now. Let’s assume I am not experienced, I will react and fight him and he will shoot the gun and then you could imagine what would have happened next.”
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