Recent events cast doubt on the quality and efficacy of training of police officers. 

I highly doubt whether the police are well prepared to protect the lives of civilians, leave alone their own.

Have the police become sitting ducks? Have they become an easy prey to criminals?

Cases of thugs ambushing armed police and escaping with their loaded guns are on the rise.

 Outsmarted

Not long ago in Trans-Nzoia County, two policemen that had gone to lay an ambush on a wanted criminal were outsmarted by the very criminal and killed.

It defeats logic how a thug, tear gassed and surrounded in his den at 3am, can kill all but one cop.

This comes after dozens of recruits got themselves in a trap laid by a battalion of ethnic militia in the Baragoi massacre and got killed.

I have always imagined that a loaded gun is supposed to be handled in a given way so that in the event that the trigger goes off accidentally bystanders are not hurt.

It was thus shocking during the recently concluded elections when a police officer ‘accidentally’ shot and killed a presiding officer. Were they under attack or was the officer dozing with his blazing gun pointed at the chest of the presiding officer?

These days, it is not uncommon to see police on patrol take turns to enter wines and spirits dens not to quench their thirst or to look for criminals but to collect the daily protection fee!  With the protection fee having been pocketed, the men in uniform gleefully look the other way as ‘Mututho’ laws are broken with reckless abandon.

Traffic police are even worse. Images of a traffic officer being beaten by a driver some time back clearly shows that these officers lack sufficient training and regular practice in physical engagement and are easy prey to touts and drivers and other members of the public.

And the police do not help amend all this negativity, what with a majority of them still taking bribes.

We hope that the on-going police reforms will also include reviewing the training curriculum. Police are society’s watchmen and need to be at their best.

Malik Sumba, Mumias