'Beersheba bank victim not shot by police'

Justice Ministry probe clears police; Southern District Police Cmdr: Those who criticized police over shooting should apologize.

By BEN HARTMAN
Bank robbery scene 370 (photo credit: Yasser Okbi, The Post)
Bank robbery scene 370
(photo credit: Yasser Okbi, The Post)
A Beduin man wounded during last month’s shooting at a Beersheba bank was shot by the gunman who opened fire, not by police, according to an investigation released on Tuesday by the Justice Ministry’s department for investigating police misconduct.
After waking up at Beersheba’s Soroka University Medical Center last Thursday, Omar Walid of Rafah said that it was police who shot him and not gunman Itamar Alon, who killed four people before taking his life in the Bank Hapoalim branch in the Neve Ze’ev neighborhood.
Walid was also famously taken from the scene in handcuffs – as was a Jewish- Israeli shooting victim – by police, who at the time were not sure if the two were involved in the shooting or not.
Southern District Police Cmdr. Yoram Halevy said Tuesday that “in light of the investigative findings, the crime scene findings, the laboratory ballistic results, the testimony of survivors, and now the Justice Department probe – that determined without any shadow of a doubt that the victim was shot and wounded by the murderer and not by police – it is fitting that those who came out and attacked police, including public figures, should express remorse at the defamation against Southern District Police.”