Thursday, April 8, 2010

Ghanaian Doctoral Student Shot by Police Says He was No Threat

See also:

Students march over shooting.
Independent investigation demanded in shooting.
Ghanaian student shot. What you can do.
Ghanaian student shot in head.
Tales from my hood (Inglewood): Police settle over shooting.








UF student, shot by police, tells his story

Doctoral student was shot by police and is charged with assault.








Rob C. Witzel/Staff photographer
University of Florida doctoral student Kofi Adu-Brempong sits up in his hospital bed Tuesday as he writes about the night he was shot in the face by a UPD officer while in his campus apartment. Sitting by his bed is niece Danielle Agyemang, from left, and sister-in-law Cynthia Agyemang. Kofi was unable to speak about the incident clearly because his jaw is still wired shut from the incident.
Published: Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 7:41 a.m.
University of Florida doctoral student Kofi Adu-Brempong said Tuesday from his hospital bed that university police should have never entered his campus apartment March 2 and suggested that he didn't pose a threat before an officer shot him in the face.
"They didn't have any business coming into my home," Adu-Brempong said in his first interview since the shooting, straining to speak through a jaw wired shut because of his injuries. "I wasn't doing anything to anybody."
Adu-Brempong's family posted his bail Tuesday to avoid him being transferred from the hospital to the Alachua County jail. The move meant detention officers standing guard outside his hospital room left their post, allowing his sister-in-law, niece and others to visit him for the first time in the four weeks since the shooting.
Communicating at times through writing because he had difficulty talking, Adu-Brempong described a series of events that differed from police reports. While police reported that he swung a metal rod at an officer before being shot, Adu-Brempong wrote that he was alarmed when they entered and picked up a rod from a broken computer desk when the shooting started.
"If you come to my room with guns, am I not the one who should feel threatened?" he wrote.
Adu-Brempong, a 35-year-old doctoral student and teaching assistant in geography from Ghana, faces charges of aggravated assault on an officer and resisting an officer with violence in the incident. The charges meant he's officially been a jail inmate and the county was responsible for his hospital stay and guards, which the jail estimates has cost at least $290,000.
Read more @ Ocala.com

tags: kofi adu-brempong, police brutality, florida, ghana

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