Thugs did not dare to kill police officers

 A police officer at a shooting scene. Photo: File

The recent video doing rounds in the social media of a police officer shooting an alleged criminal in Eastleigh, solicited varying opinions.

Many praised the policeman, terming him a hero. Others — led by human rights activists — thought it was wrong.

I think the police was trying to send a message to the young thugs out there: “You won’t kill a policeman and go free”. These young thugs use a lot of drugs and have broken the underworld code: you don’t kill police, women or children.

Back in the day, crime had no place in society. This obnoxious idea of the world being “a small village” — thanks to technology — is what has brought these issues of human rights.

Those days, policing started from the family unit - that is homes, then villages — before expanding to the public. Our parents were strict about petty crimes like stealing sugar, coins and food. Believe me, sugar was rare and we used to like licking it as we never had a lot of confectioneries those days. So, if your parents or the maid found some evidence of sugar on your lips, you would be caned.

Today, I see young girls and boys smoking marijuana in public without any fear. Ask anyone who is a bamba forty like me, and he’ll tell you that smoking marijuana those days was tantamount to committing murder — your parents would not hesitate to send you to some approved school.

Police were the law, and the crown was respected and feared. Police had the right to arrest you in case they found you roaming at night. And you had to be polite when explaining yourself.

It was unheard of to kill a police officer. We had one Mr Shaw, who was the most-feared policeman. He would warn criminals to stop their ways, but if you persisted, he would kill you and dump your body at your mother’s doorstep.

In case another cop succeeded in killing you before he did, he would still pump bullets into your lifeless body!

I know of many young men who left the city. He actually gave them bus fare to travel to the village, never to return to the city. Some of them only came back 10 years after Shaw’s death. Shaw was feared all over Nairobi, even in schools. Note that he was the discipline master at Starehe School. And whenever he walked into City Stadium — during schools’ regional competitions — we would all keep quiet, in fear. Some of us who were naughty had to tuck in our shirts.

Today, many of us who are in gated communities don’t really understand the type of crime that goes on in other areas. It’s true we have laws that govern us, but when lawyers and human rights people run to defend thugs — and not the victims who suffer after being mugged - then we have a problem.

Countries like Brazil did not deal with this problem 20 years ago — and now they have to assemble special army units to enter certain slums. In the USA, any thug who kills a policeman never makes it to court, and if they do, the bail is set so high they never come out of jail — they don’t survive. Thugs should be dealt with ruthlessly, just the way the former commissioner of police Mohammed Hussein Ali did. Remember when thugs stole guns from police and hid in Mathare? Ali placed the area under curfew. The guns were found. Let the authorities deal with crime with an iron fist.