Ike Bazooka in court
Loading ...Ike Bazooka Quartey, a former World Boxing Authority (WBA) Champion, was brought down to earth yesterday when His Worship, Kwame Polley, the Magistrate of the City Engineers Magistrate Court at James Town in Accra told him to behave himself while standing before him.
Ike, whose demeanour in the dock suggested an aura of arrogance and disrespect, was told “We respect you as a boxer outside but I want you to respect the court and behave yourself in the dock.”
The boxer was dragged before the City Engineers Magistrate Court at James Town yesterday for leaving his cattle to cause damage to a motorist’s car.
One of the cows, said to belong to him, ran into a Kia Sportage four-wheeled vehicle with registration number GR2437X, damaging the windscreen and right-side driving mirror.
Standing with Bazooka in the dock was Samuel Cofie, the boxer’s herdsman whose negligence caused the accident.
Both Bazooka and Cofie pleaded not guilty when the prosecutor, Chief Inspector Robert Owusu read the charges of allowing the cattle to go astray, and causing harm to property.
According to the prosecutor, upon inquiry, the motorist Kate Gyasie, a resident of Gbawe found out that the herd of cattle belonged to Ike and subsequently made a report to the Dansoman Police.
Speaking to DAILY GUIDE in Dansoman, the Crime Officer, Chief Superintendent Stephen Anyan, said the complainant reported that she was driving on the Mallam main road when a cow hit her car on January 27, 2008, damaging the windscreen and the mirror.
C/Supt. Anyan said when Ike Bazooka was invited to the police station, he was aggressive and told the police who had gone to invite him that “not even the IGP can drag me to the police” and that he was not coming.
The insolent behaviour put up by Ike infuriated the police, and on the instruction of the Crime Officer, Ike was served with Criminal Summon to appear before the City Engineers Magistrate Court at James Town, a suburb of Accra, to answer charges of the offence of leaving his animals at large without proper care.
He would also be charged with provocation, abusive conducts at a police officer and also for being aggressive.
According to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) bye-laws, individuals or groups of people are not allowed to rear animals in their homes or allow their animals to go astray.
According to the police, the cows were still at large.
Quartey’s career was on a solid path but layoffs, mixed with heartbreaking decision losses to Oscar De La Hoya and Fernando Vargas left a slightly sour note to his career. Following his loss to Vargas in April, 2000, Quartey seemed to vanish from the sport of boxing.
In October, 1997, he fought Jose Luis Lopez to a draw. The decision was originally read as a win for Quartey but reversed when a flaw was found in the scoring. Although Quartey was down twice, most observers felt that he deserved the victory and his reputation suffered a little damage. Personal, business and health issues kept Quartey out of the ring until February, 1999.
His inactivity led him to be stripped of his WBA belt, but he challenged WBC champion Oscar De La Hoya at the Thomas & Mack centre in Las Vegas, Nevada. De La Hoya came away with a controversial split decision.
He then left the ring for the next five years. Quartey returned to the ring in January of 2005 and won the first three bouts of his comeback. On August 5, 2006, he again lost a close and extremely controversial unanimous decision to former welterweight champion, Vernon Forrest at the Madison Square Garden Theatre in New York.
Quartey would remain almost inactive for the rest of this year, eventually jumping up to the junior middleweight division to challenge undefeated Fernando Vargas for his IBF title.
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