'Allow me to pray first': Last words of Nakuru man 'executed' by police

If Samuel Cheruiyot had known what the night held, he says, he would have accompanied the boy as he was whisked away by police from the family’s home.

On the night of July 14, Collins Kibet, 16, and three other boys

and three other youths in the neighbourhood would die under a hail of bullets discharged from police officers’ guns.

The killings have prompted families, neighbours and residents in Barut, Nakuru, to urge the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa), the Internal Affairs Unit of the National Police Service and other bodies to investigate the officers who pulled the triggers and get justice for their sons.

The day after Kibet, Collins Kipkorir, 21, Kevin Kipyegon, 20, and Dennis Kipchirchir, 23, were shot, Nakuru County Police Commander Peter Mwanzo gathered reporters and told them that the four boys had been members of the Nyuki gang that has been terrorizing members of the public.

“Officers on patrol were confronted by the gang and there was an exchange of fire and four of the gang members were fatally shot,” he said.

That raised hopes among residents of the city that finally the gang, blamed for the murders of women over the past month that led to the transfer of the no-nonsense police officer to the town, was being dealt with.

Four days after the killings, though, families and neighbours of the youths reiterated that they were innocent, and that they had been pulled out of their homes peacefully by officers in uniform, gathered at one site and shot.

Witnesses said one of the youths, Mr Kipchirchir, had put his hands up in surrender and begged the police to allow him to pray first before they took his life.

In Kibet’s case, his father, Mr Cheruiyot, said: “There was no confrontation with the police. In fact, they picked up my son from home.” He added that five police officers who took him away at 11.30pm were in uniform.

He told Nation.Africa that he was woken up by a commotion coming from his son’s house and went there to inquire what was happening.

On his way, he said, he met three officers at his son’s door while two others were inside the house with spotlights.

The officers, he said, did not tell him why they were taking away the teenager, but one of the officers asked him who he was and told him to get back into the house and sleep.

Mr Cheruiyot said that he left and stood at a distance and after a short while the officers left with his son and boarded two motorbikes which were waiting outside their gate.

“When they told me to go and sleep I knew something was wrong. I just stood somewhere and saw them leaving with my son. Other officers walked on foot while the others boarded the motorbikes and went straight to where they were killed,” he said.

The father of five said that after one hour they heard gunshots emanating from one house.

“We could not follow them, because there were many officers and we feared they could arrest or harm us. But when we heard gunshots, I just told his brother he had been killed. I am still in pain. I buried my wife on Tuesday then here I am mourning again,” he said.

Mr Cheruiyot said his son was a sand harvester at a quarry a few kilometres from their home, having dropped out of school in Form Two.

On the day Kipkorir was picked up, he was with his wife. The couple married last year and they were expecting their first child.

His wife said the officers ordered Kipkorir to dress up and lie down before handcuffing and leaving with him.

Kipkorir’s brother, Elvis Kipkemoi, who was sleeping in an adjacent house that night, said he was woken up by people who tried to open his door but one interjected saying that the person they were looking for was sleeping in a different house.

He said he was afraid to come out but he could hear the officers talking from his brother’s house and ordering him to come out.

He said that he later joined his father, who was outside the whole time, and they only went back to sleep at 2am after the officers had left.

Mr Kipkemoi said he woke up at 6am and proceeded to the houses where his brother had been taken the previous night. While there he met a neighbour who was crying.

He said that he was shocked to find his brother’s slippers at the entrance to one house, and upon entering, he saw blood all over. He went back home to inform his father about what had happened.

“We have never witnessed such an incident in our village where officers pick people up and the next morning they are found dead. We tried to hide the incident from our siblings but they heard about it from neighbours. It has not been easy for all of us, as we lost our mother recently,” he said

A few kilometres away at Kipyegon and Kipchirchir's homestead, relatives were busy with burial preparations as the two were set to be buried today (Tuesday).

Their sister, Maurine Cherono, who was yet to come to terms with the loss of her two brothers, said she received a phone call from a neighbour informing her about the events of Friday morning.

Ms Cherono, a resident of the Mzee Wanyama area, said that the family’s last-born, Kipyegon, was picked up from his rental house where he lived with his girlfriend, just a few metres from where Kipchirchir was living.

She said the two were forced to tell the officers who their friends were and some of the officers left to pick up the other two.

“If they were indeed criminals as they are alleging, the officers should not have killed them but instead they should have been arrested and taken to court. It is better visiting them in jail while they are alive than killing them,” she said

“There are now only two of us left, my sister and I. Our mother passed away in 2016 while our father died in 2000. Now the homestead has been left with no one.”

Their uncle, Mr Linus Bisei, regretted that his nephews had died at the hands of officers who should have been protecting them, adding that the detectives knew whom they were looking for and even their names.

He said they had been told the four were taken to a police station but their bodies were found lying at the Nakuru city mortuary.

Nicholas Koech said his brother Kibet was with his two other brothers sleeping in their house when police came and took him.

He said that they were all ordered to go outside and the officers asked them their names. The two were later asked to go back to the house but Kibet was handcuffed and taken shirtless.

Mr Koech said the terrified brothers ran to his house and informed him that Kibet had been taken away by police officers without telling them what he had done.

He said they thought Kibet had been taken to a police station and decided to wait until daybreak to find out more. But they were later told four people had been killed, though they did not think their brother was one of them.

Mr Koech said his brother completed primary school in Kericho, rejoined them in Nakuru in April and started working at a quarry.

He said that Kibet was planning to enroll at a polytechnic to study mechanics because he lacked school fees to proceed to secondary school.

“We were told some had been taken to hospital and we rushed there but he was not there. We proceeded to the Nakuru Level Five Hospital mortuary but were referred to the city mortuary, where we were informed that four bodies had just been brought in,” he said.

“We were shown the bodies and one of them was of my brother. He was still handcuffed and had gunshots in his chest and head. Why did they have to be killed?”

Nakuru County Police Commander Peter Mwanzo rejected the claims from relatives of the young people, saying that parents should raise their children well.

"Anyone that is going to disturb the peace here by killing, stabbing and causing injuries to innocent people will face the full force of the law. The proportion only God knows," Mr Mwanzo said.

On Monday, Ipoa officials and representatives of human rights groups were interviewing the families of the youths to find out if they were victims of extrajudicial execution.

Mr Mwanzo told the Nation by phone that the families were not telling the truth and that the media should help the police in fighting crime.

“Why did you not ask me before publishing the story online?” he asked, demanding that an article posted earlier on Nation.Africa be pulled down.

Autopsies on the four bodies were to be performed today as the families made burial arrangements.