Police Kill Robbery Suspect, Recover Stolen Vehicle

The police in Abuja on Thursday night gunned down an armed robbery suspect who snatched a Toyota Highlander Sport Utility Vehicle at Garki Area 11 and attempted to rob a supermarket with two other suspects.

 The jeep was recovered along with an SMG rifle, nine live ammunition and three cell-phones.

The two accomplices of the dead robbery suspect escaped, but the police said they were working to apprehend them.

 The Divisional Police Officer in charge of the Central Police Station, Wuse, Chief Superintendent of Police Haruna Garba, said that he received a distress call around 8.15 pm that a robbery operation was going on at a supermarket.

“On getting the distress call, we could quickly mobilised to the supermarket and saw three men running and we gunned down one of them and recovered an SMG rifle, nine rounds of  live ammunition and three cell phones from him. We later got a signal that a jeep was snatched at Area 11 and it turned out that the car was snatched by the gang,” Garba said.

The DPO promised that his men would track down the fleeing suspects soon, adding that the calls and messages coming into the deceased’s phones would be analysed to get the other gang members.

The owner of the SUV, who was reluctant to disclose his identity, explained that he came from Gombe to visit his former school mate in Abuja when the car was snatched at gunpoint.

 He said he was parking the car when three men accosted him, put a gun to his head and slapped him. He identified the dead suspect as the person that snatched the car key from him.

 He said, “I was parking the car at Area 11, behind Kia Motors, when three men came and met me and my friend. They slapped us, and pushed me down into the mud; the dead robber was the one that snatched the car key, collected the N20,000 in my bag and collected four phones from me and my friend.”

The man, who claimed to be a lawyer, lauded the police for their quick response.