A policeman-Lance Corporal Robert Kumi Ackah of the Tamale Rapid Deployment Force has been shot and killed by a police patrol team who mistook him for an armed robber while the officer was escorting an ‘OA’ passenger bus to the Northern region.

The incident happened on Sunday dawn on the Buipe-Kintampo stretch of the highway.

“The OA bus, with registration number GE 6402-14, he was escorting was heading towards the north and encountered armed robbers on the road between Buipe and Kintampo,” reports Graphic Ghana.

According to the bus driver, “Eric Lawson who narrated the incident on Accra-based radio station, Okay FM,they were told some armed men had blocked the road between Kawampe and Gulumpe, and they saw a number of vehicles had parked. He said Lance Corporal Ackah, who was armed with an AK 47 but was in mufti went out of the bus and fired warning shots. When he saw the robbers fleeing, he asked the bus driver to do a u-turn and move towards safety until reinforcement arrived.”

“Whilst moving, a police patrol team was said to have arrived and so the escorting officer asked the driver to do another turn and follow the patrol vehicle closely. When they got to the robbery scene, where the road had been blocked, the escorting officer went out of the bus and moved towards the patrol vehicle, but according to the driver, before he got close, the patrol vehicle moved ahead and so Lance Corporal Ackah waited at where the road block was and fired warning shots. The patrol officers then turned and on reaching the scene, they were said to have fired at their colleague,” says the report.

The police patrol team said they responded to a distress call on the Kintampo-Buipe highway and gunned down Lance Corporal Ackah because of mistaken identity.

The policeman and three others namely, 8-year-old Cynthia Ayaab, Kwabena Sarfo, 44 and Gurusom Bashiru, 28 were sent to Kintampo Hospital but the policeman died on arrival–following the the shootout.