Police on Thursday morning - 5 December - ran amok with protesting commercial transport drivers along the Lumley, Juba and Goderich areas, in the west of Freetown.
The riot left Operational Support Division (OSD) officer dead, according to police.
The protesters burned tyres and barricaded some areas including Femi Turner Driver, place of the private home of President Ernest Bai Koroma.
According to eyewitnesses the police "severely manhandled" the protesters. Someone taking pictures for Politico when the alleged police heavy-handedness was going on had his camera seized. Following protestations, it was returned to him but after the police had deleted all apparently incriminating photographs.
Soldiers had to be deployed to help quell the situation ostensibly because the police could not or were compromised to do so.
The riots followed the death in police custody between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning of a taxi driver who had been arrested by the men in blue at the Lumley Police Station.
The drivers allege that their colleague was beaten to death by the arresting officers leading to his death.
However, the police Local Unit Commander at the Lumley Police denies the allegation, saying his men did not beat him. Chief Superintendent Kabbah Kamara told Politico that the deceased was arrested because he was inebriated and was driving "in a way that posed a threat to the public". He urged all to wait for the autopsy report which he said was being processed.
LUC Kabbah said "more than 12 people have been arrested and will be charged to court for riotous conduct" for yesterday's incident.
Asked whether they had a breathalyser to have determined that the deceased, Lamin Kamara, a.k.a. Africa, was under the influence of alcohol, Kabbah said "no" but added that his manner of driving and his swagger when he was taken to the police, indicated that.
He said the OSD officer died while he was on duty on a motorbike which was accidentally rammed into by a passing vehicle.
This is the latest in a series of fatal incidents involving the police. It comes in the wake of the shooting dead of a secondary school pupil of the Ansarul Islamic Secondary School in Freetown last month which was roundly condemned by a wide range of organisations among them the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone. That was preceded by the killing of two youthful neighbourhood watchmen in the eastern Wellington area last year, the shooting dead of a man on Circular Road in Freetown and the killing in Bo during an opposition rally last year. All by police.
(C) Politico 06/12/13
