Police Shoot SUV Snatcher

•Rasheed Aremu, the suspect armed robber shot by the police

Barely two weeks after the police at Dopemu Police Station in Lagos,  southwest Nigeria, smashed a five-man robbery gang at Bashoru Street in Dopemu area and recovered guns, laptops, phones and jewelry from the suspects, the police have again shot and arrested a suspected armed robber, Rasheed Aremu, 23.

The police recovered a locally made pistol, two cutlasses, a laptop, one knife, ten handsets and the  Mercedes Benz 450ML SUV marked JT195EKY earlier snatched by the suspect and other fleeing members of the gang.

Aremu, a native of Igboora in Oyo State, and his gang were alleged to have snatched the vehicle around Festac area and later moved to Ejigbo where they also robbed residents of Apata Road by KJ Block Industry of money, phones and other valuables before heading to Dopemu.
According to a police source at Dopemu Police Station, the robbers who were driving the snatched SUV around Adealu Bus Stop against traffic, opened fire on the police attached to the Anti-Robbery Squad.

The  source said the police fired back at the robbers and Aremu, the driver of the SUV was shot in the leg and arrested while others escaped with bullet wounds.
When P.M.NEWS visited the station, one of the victims of the robbery attack at Ejigbo, who identified himself as Mr. Lawrence Otolape, a resident of  Taiwo Street, Ejigbo, told P.M.NEWS that he and some of his friends were at KJ Bus Stop when the robbers arrived and robbed all of them.

“When I went to report the matter at Okota Police Station, the police called my line and the police at Dopemu Station picked it and said that one of the robbers had been arrested and that I should come to their station. That is why I am here,” Otolape said.

All efforts to speak with the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Dopemu Police station, Mr. Adeyemi G. Emmanuel, a Suprintendent of Police,  proved abortive as he was said to have gone out on a routine patrol.

A senior police source at the station, however, warned criminals in the area to relocate as the DPO has vowed to make the area very hot for them.