Police kill four suspected gangsters in Westlands, Nairobi

NAIROBI COUNTY: Four suspected thugs were Monday afternoon shot dead by police after a chase near the busy MP Shah Hospital, Parklands in Nairobi and a rifle found on them.

Police said the men were headed for a robbery mission when they were alerted in the 4 pm incident.

The officers involved in the operation said they recovered an AK47 rifle with 23 bullets.

The suspects were all felled as they tried to escape from a car they were using after a dramatic chase.

Head of Special Crimes Prevention Unit Noah Katumo said his officers tried to flag down the car that the men had been driving but they defied prompting a chase.

“This saw four of them gunned down and we recovered an AK47 rifle with 23 bullets from them,” said Katumo.

Katumo said the men had been linked to a robbery in a club in Mombasa.

“They were even captured on cameras ordering people to lie down as they robbed them. They were on another mission here,” said Katumo.

The killing brought to almost 13 in the last five days in a renewed war on crime.

Five were killed last Wednesday in two separate incidents in Ongata Rongai and Uthiru area.

Four others had been killed Monday in a botched robbery along Thika Road, Nairobi.

The bodies were later moved to the mortuary as a crowd surged at the scene to witness it. This caused a brief traffic jam on the busy roads.

Incidents of armed robberies have been on the rise in the city leaving police to struggle to contain them. Out of desperation, police have resorted to killing such robbery suspects.

Last month alone, more than 30 suspects were killed in Nairobi alone in separate robbery attempts and guns recovered from them in the war on crime.

Police say they are in control of security issues in the city.