How Midland 'hid' police assault on nursing mother until public outcry

The condemnation and apology from Midland Saving and Loans following the police assault on a client seem to have done little to calm public nerves.

Many are now questioning why a company which describes itself as reputable, failed to report the incident and waited for the video to surface online before apologizing particularly after the woman, Patience Osarfo, revealed during her interview with UTV that the incident actually happened on Thursday, July 19, but came to bear on Friday, July 20.

Others are even contending that the way and manner staff of the bank looked on for the poor woman to be brutalized to a pulp by the policeman may be an indication of the physical abuse that clients, especially poor ones suffer.

In her interview with Utv, the victim revealed that "We (she and another customer) went there on Monday and they claimed the network was not active. We were told the same thing on Wednesday too.

"On Thursday, we were told the same thing by the woman at the bank and asked to wait till after 12 when the network would be back up. We sat in the air-conditioned hall for hours until it became unbearable for me and especially for the safety of the child. Others were being attended to but they refused to settle us who had already been there days before."

Midland Savings and Loans released a statement apologizing to the middle-aged woman who was abused for refusing to leave the banking hall Thursday, condemning the act that occurred in their institution but failed to indicate when they made a report to the police on the incident.

What many are raising concerns about at this point is why the issue was not brought to fore by the said institution till sections of the public and the media began to ‘make noise’ about it.

Her story even makes matters worse for The Ghana Police Service and Midland Savings and Loans. We are even lucky this was caught on camera. I’m so angry a fellow human being, woman, grandmother and Ghanaian could be treated like this. #policebrutalitymuststop pic.twitter.com/NbyvPKNarG

— Ekua Asanteba-Mensah (@AsantebaEkua) July 21, 2018

Meanwhile, the Ghana Bar Association, Ghana Police Service and Occupy Ghana have all released statements to condemn the conduct of the police officer and the staff of the savings and loans company who failed to intervene.

Occupy Ghana has further called for the prosecution of staff of the bank for aiding and abetting the crime while some legal brains have strongly urged the woman to sue both the police and the financial institution.

Frederick Amanor has been arrested on the orders of the Inspector General of Police and investigations into his conduct is underway.