Police officers should protect, not take, lives
Recruits in a parade during a past pass-out ceremony at Kenya Police College Kiganjo in Nyeri County.
There seems to be a profound systematic failure in the way police are doing their work. In the US recently, five policeman set on a young man who was driving home. After they pulled him over, over a traffic infraction, they kicked and punched him to a pulp and, three days later, he was dead.
Never mind that this happened in Memphis, where the National Civil Rights Museum that symbolises the national civil rights movement is located. Memphis also hosts Lorraine Motel, where acclaimed civil rights activist Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was staying when he was shot dead in 1968, a day after he delivered his last speech, “I have been to the mountaintop”.
And then the news that, finally, three police officers and their accomplice implicated in the death of lawyer Willie Kimani, his client and driver were sentenced with the mastermind handed a death sentence. Justice had finally been served to the victims but, unfortunately, death is so terribly final and the lives of the three innocent souls will never come back. The victims’ kin will never see their loved ones again.
Convicted policemen
Not so, however, for the convicted policemen. Their kin will see them again when they complete their sentences. Or visit them in prison.
The trio’s sentencing comes two years after a former Ruaraka Police Station boss was sent to the gallows after he killed an inmate in the cells.
Now, the bereaved families can go to court and seek compensation from the government for violating the right to life of their deceased family members as enshrined under Article 26 of the Constitution.
The culprits were state officers. Therefore, the state is culpable. Had they carried out their duties within the law as agents and employees of the National Police Service, the lives of the three would not have been cut short.
The impunity with which state officers are committing offences can only stop when justice is allowed to roll like a river. No crime should go unpunished. Judiciary is finally working.
Mr Kamau, a former HR practitioner, is an author. [email protected].
