By: Ade Adeleke
The Ondo State Police Command says two policemen and one civilian were killed during last week’s violence that engulfed the state amidst ENDSARS protest.
The state Commissioner of Police, Bolaji Salami, who confirmed this in Akure, while parading eighteen suspected looters and arsonists, explained that the two policemen were killed in Ore and Ondo town.
Mr Salami said the victim in Ore was mobbed while the policeman in Ondo was killed and burnt inside his car.
He said the civilian casualty was one of the three-man gang that attempted to rob a new generation bank in Ondo town.
Pix: faces of the suspects.
Salami said the sergeant that was killed in Ondo City, ran into the hoodlums around the palace road and was killed and burnt along with his car.
The commissioner, who highlighted some of the criminal activities of the hoodlums in the state during the protest, said the carnage suffered by the Police command in the state, cannot be estimated shipping far and quick.
Salami appealed to the people of the state never to lose faith in the policing architecture of the state under his supervision.
He said: “I am fully committed to policing you and the entire state with the best of my ability and certainly with respect to human rights. Let us put behind us the events of the past weeks and focus on our ability to support the police as it was in the beginning.”
The commissioner commended all sister security agencies for standing by the police in time of crises.
Among the 18 suspects that were paraded, two were females that were arrested allegedly in connection with arson and looting at the State Secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Giving the breakdown of the arrested suspects, Salami said three suspects were arrested at Owo, four in connection with the APC Secretariat arson and looting, two in Ore, six in connection with the attack on Oda Police Division while three were arrested by men of 32 Artillery Brigade, Akure.
The commissioner said apart from other criminal activities of the suspects, the command was yet to recover a pistol belonging to the Oda Division with eight rounds of ammunition, a magazine loaded with 30 rounds of AK 47 ammunition, allegedly carted by the hoodlums.
He said that all investigations had concluded on the involvement of the suspects in the crimes and would soon be charged to court.