IPNEWS – Monrovia: One of President George Manneh Weah’s bodyguards, who are traveling with him on his present county tour, allegedly shot himself in the head by 0600 G.M.T. Friday, February 19, in Tappita, Nimba County. He is reported to have died instantly, even though he was rushed to the Jackson F. Doe Memorial Referral Hospital for resuscitation.

Executive Protective Services (EPS) agent Melvin Earley, who had been with this important security detail that provides protection for the President, Vice President and other VVIPs, had been with the EPS since its restructuring after the civil conflict ended more than 15 years ago.

A statement from EPS on the death of Officer Earley reads: “The Executive Protection Service (EPS) regrets the sudden death of one of its agents, Melvin Earley. According to preliminary reports the long serving EPS agent shot himself at about 06:03 am on Friday, February 19, 2021 in Tappita, Nimba County. He was on duty during the time of the incident. The EPS has launched a full-scale investigation to establish any potential reason of the suicide. Agent Earley has been with EPS since the restructuring of the service after the Liberian Civil crisis. Meanwhile, the hierarchy of the EPS extends heartfelt condolences to his family.”

At the moment, it is not yet revealed why Officer Earley took his own life. One reporter traveling with the President’s entourage, reporting from Tappita back to her place of work in Monrovia via mobile phone, stated that eyewitnesses told she and other reporters that they (eyewitnesses) had overheard Officer Earley complaining that too many calls were coming from his bosses. According to this reporter, the eyewitnesses didn’t explain who were those calling the deceased and for what reason.

An EPS officer, who is also on the President’s tour, which began in Bong County, now Nimba, anonymously told this outlet that some of them are being harassed by some of their bosses to share their daily subsistence allowances (DSA) with them. This officer even alleged that some of those who act otherwise, are made to stay very long hours on duty without rest.

“The EPS officer was on guard in Tappita and was later acting unusual, so his colleague noticed him and decided to take the big gun from him, but stay had a 45- weapon that he used to shoot himself” the Presidential Press Secretary Isaac Solo Keigbeh is quoted as telling a local radio in Monrovia.

This is not the first incident of officers of this elite force committing suicide. It can be recalled that the late Bobby N. Calphen, an Executive Protection Service (EPS), who used to be assigned to the details of Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor, hanged himself.

Police investigators had found no foul play; they treated it strictly a case of suicide even though some relatives of the deceased believed there was foul play.

The wife of the deceased, Madam Kebeh Calphen had told a local daily that she came from the market and met her husband hanged on a belt to the wall in an unfinished building.

The unfinished building is said to be the second house the deceased and his wife were constructing prior to his death.

In July 2016, Agent Prince Mawolo, who was assigned with the detail manning President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, shot one of his colleagues outside the convention hall.

Officer Mawolo had shot and injured his fellow EPS officer when they reportedly disagreed on who was entitled to a “certain woman.”

The wounded agent was meanwhile admitted at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Phebe Hospital in Suakoko, near Gbarnga.

That shooting incident nearly disrupted the holding of the second day of the Unity Party’s convention on Friday, July 8, and resulted in several other persons, including a radio journalist from Monrovia, sustaining injuries in the stampede.