In as much as we appreciate the important roles the Sierra Leone Police keep playing, there are few bad ones who sometimes jump overboard and react in an unacceptable fashion.

This is exactly what happened on Wednesday October 26th, 2022 at the Eastern Police Station where police officers in a crude fashion arrested and detained two decent journalists on false and baseless allegations that they obstructed their duty.

The crux of the matter is that, the two men, Yusuf Bangura, a national broadcaster who reports for the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) and Independent Newspaper; and Bockarie Kamara who works for The New Storm Newspaper, coincidentally met at the station on separate issues. One of the men, Yusuf had gone to the station to meet the Operation Officer who is his friend, and Bockarie was there too but on different issue.

But given that the two men know each other, Bockarie decided to accompany Yusuf to his friend, Ops Officer.

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On their way out of the latter’s office, the journalists were greeted with ugly incident involving two female cops who were engaged in fist fight but were also trading unprintable invective at each other following disagreement over sharing of items they had earlier allegedly seized from traders at Sani Abacha Street.

Having realized that the two men were journalists and have phones with recorders, the officers who were standing by enjoying the fun immediately swooped on them and seized their properties on the suspicion that they were either recording or taking photographs of the unwarranted and unacceptable behaviour of their colleagues.

According to the victims, they took them to the Crime Officer on the allegation that they were obstructing their duty and the Crime Officer immediately instructed their detention.

They said they were forced into cell and spent the night there among hard core criminals.

They were only released the next morning after one of their senior colleagues had posted the incident on social media which caught the attention of the head of the SLP media, who ordered their immediate and unconditional release.

It is gathered that the two female officers have already been handed over to the CDIID for further investigation.