– The man hiding on the tree
A suspected male thief held security personnel on guard for close to 8 hours in the early hours of August 18 while he took a nap on the tallest tree around the Busia (37) roundabout in a bid to escape arrest.
The man whose identity is not yet known was caught attempting to cut down a banner on a billboard.
It was an unusual scene at the 37 Military Hospital Roundabout in Accra early Monday morning, the kind that drew curious glances and whispers.
Around 1:00am, a joint team from the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana National Fire Service responded to a situation.
The man had fled upon alarm blowing, not by running, but by climbing up a tall tree nearby to avoid arrest.
According to eyewitnesses, the man perched himself right at the top, and for nearly seven hours, refused to come down, not even flashing lights, sirens, or coaxing from the security personnel could convince him otherwise.
One hawker who watched the whole thing unfold said the man looked determined to “sleep in the tree” if that’s what it took to escape. And it seems he did just that waiting for the authorities to give up.
By around 7:30am, as the crowd thinned and security personnel had left the scene, the suspect quietly descended and vanished before anyone could stop him. Witnesses claimed he appeared to be holding a weapon, so no one dared approach.
A hawker who was an eyewitness said “he was holding scissors and knife. So, we couldn’t get close to catch him and he run off”.
Another, Aunty Esther, carrying soft drinks and water said: ‘‘madam, he looked like a junky ooo. He was there this morning till about 8. When he saw that the police had left, then he climbed down and took off. He was smiling when we were hooting at him’’.
It’s still unclear why the attempt to arrest him was abandoned.
Well, for eight hours, he perched on the tree like a human bird in hiding, lucky to take off escaping justice with a smile. There’s a saying that, every day for the thief, one day for the master. One question remained: would he ever learn that crime doesn’t pay?
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