In their line of duty to protect citizens, we have had instances in Ghana where police personnel have gone overboard by abusing some of the people they are to protect.
And 2018 was no exception to this unfortunate and unprofessional behaviour by some officers in the Ghana Police Service. innocent citizens.
We, at Pulse Ghana, therefore recapped some of these instances where policemen assaulted and in a particular case killed Ghanaians in 2018.
1. Joy FM journalist assault
In March, the ex-Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Koku Anyidoho was arrested for making incendiary comments about President Akufo-Addo.
He was alleged to have said that if the President isn't careful, there will a be a civil coup in the country. While he was being detained at the Police Headquarters in Accra, some party supporters stormed there to offer their support.
During the unrest, a journalist from Accra based Joy FM's approached one of the policemen in a bid to interview him on the incident. Unfortunately, the officer told him to stop asking stupid questions, slapped him, and then pushed him into a crowd of officers who dragged the journalist into the main yard of the CID headquarters.
"They also pounced on me, started beating me up, slapping me here and there," Iddrisu said. "They hit me with sticks and they hit my head with the butt of the gun multiple times," Iddrisu said.
"[Another] police officer who came to rescue me...told them point blank that 'he's a journalist', but they [the attacking officers] wouldn't listen," Iddrisu also said. "They kept beating me until they got satisfied that they had dealt with me. Then they eventually released me."
This incident prompted the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) to release a statement and called on the top hierarchy to bring the abusive police officer to book.
2. Ama Agyeman brutality
In June, some policemen in Kumasi brutalised a 22-year old lady name Ama Agyemman.
The victim narrating her ordeal said "When they took me to the Sofoline Police Station, they beat me on arrival and then locked me up in the cells.
"I was hungry and thirsty but they wouldn’t mind me when I complained. They then handcuffed one of my hands to the cell door and started beating me."
She was taken to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and doctors indicated that the grave marks on her were because of severe assault and not an attempted suicide as claimed by the police.
3. Asawase killings
The police in Kumasi announced that they have killed seven out of the eight armed robbers that attacked and killed their colleague in Manso Nkwanta.
The alleged robbers attacked a bus one police officer Lance Corporal Tieku was travelling on from Ayirebikrom to Manso Nkwanta and shot him dead.
The police in retaliation went to Asawaase in Kumasi and killed 7 Zongo youth labelling them as the armed robbers.
However, due to agitations by some of the Zongo youth who contended that their colleagues were innocent, the government instituted an independent body to investigate the killings.
But after the investigations, the final report indicted the police and said the 7 men who were killed were innocent.
"The twenty-one (21) police personnel involved in the incident who have been found to be the principal suspects be interdicted by the Police administration and be subjected to formal police criminal investigation into the matter", a statement by the government said.
4. Adentan riots
Some residents in Adentan embarked on a demonstration after a car knocked a student of West African Senior High School (WASS) on the Madina-Adentan highway.
During the demonstrations, police officers were called upon to restore law and order. However, it rather escalated to clashes where the police allegedly assaulted pressmen and shot rubber bullets at protestors.