Break down systems that allow police to commit extrajudicial killings

Police officer tries to put out fire after protests broke out in Kayole last year, Nairobi after a middle-aged man was killed [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

On Wednesday, the Missing Voices Initiative released its annual report dubbed ‘Delayed Justice’, which chronicled unlawful police killings and enforced disappearances in 2021. The initiative, a collaboration of NGOs working around human rights, criminal justice reforms and police accountability, attempts to bring together and verify all the data on such violations from all sources, including constituent organisations.

Previously, NGOs individually collected data in isolation and from different sources, creating confusion due to differing numbers covering different contexts, including geographical areas.

The report recorded 219 killings and enforced disappearances in the period, 187 of which were police killings and 32 enforced disappearances which involved unlawful arrest or abduction of persons by agents of the State coupled with failure to acknowledge such kidnapping. In the majority of the cases, disappeared people are never seen again or are later found dead.

Pangani police station stuck out as the station with the most killings and disappearances. The report comes on the heels of the ongoing IPOA investigation into the execution of two suspects captured on cell phone footage that was initially reported by police as a shootout.

The report comes at a critical moment because such human rights violations tend to spike during electioneering periods and times of massive police deployment. For example, there was an increase in incidences in 2020 during the enforcement of Covid-19 measures and another increase during the 2017 electioneering period where killings occurred under public order management in response to protests over perceived electoral malpractices.

In both contexts, the use of force and firearms was violated, resulting in the deaths of men, women and children, including the bludgeoning of six-month-old Baby Pendo, shootings of nine-year-old Stephanie Moraa and 12-year-old Yassin Moyo in Nyalenda in Kisumu and Mathare and Kiamaiko in Nairobi respectively. 

Records show that such incidences tend to occur in poor urban areas and far-flung areas during police operations allegedly designed to fight violent crime and also in the fight against terrorism, mainly affecting coastal areas, northeastern and some parts of Nairobi. Some justify these actions as necessary to protect innocent Kenyans from dangerous criminals. However, no civilised society can thrive when specific individuals are given the power of judge, jury and executioner.

That is why the Constitution dictates that every person has a right to have their guilt or innocence determined in a judicial process to ensure that State sanctions are directed to those deserving of punishment.

If we accept a situation where law enforcement profiles people and make decisions on what to do with them, many innocent and disenfranchised persons will suffer. Besides, the state should not act like the criminals and terrorists it purports to fight.

Despite police reforms that introduced civilian oversight with the power to investigate police, created a witness protection agency and a robust and independent office of public prosecutions and judiciary, the report finds that witness tampering is rampant and that justice is often severely delayed even when officers are charged in court.

The last decade has seen several convictions of rogue officers and public trials that revealed chilling details of how some officers operate with impunity. For instance, two of the officers charged with the killing of lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and their driver Joseph Muiruri have since been charged with killing Peter Mutua Musyoka the same year.

We have made some progress in inculcating accountability, human rights compliance and professional policing. However, more needs to be done to break down systems that allow officers to be a law unto themselves.