Snapshots: Police negligence is inexcusable

 Police in action. Photo: Courtesy

There were several amusing things about last weekend’s ‘terrorist’ attack at Central Police Station in Mombasa.

Let’s get this very clear at the onset. Those three were clowns who give Angola Musumbiji, Chinkororo, Mungiki, Ingwe and Gor Mahia football goons and other home grown terror artists a bad name. They were merely wannabe terrorists to paraphrase ‘literary gangster’ Tony Mochama. You would have to be totally insane to attack a police station, even a poorly protected one, while armed with a knife and a tin of petrol.

The second hilarious thing has got to do with the manner the press reported the attack. Tweets attributed to three leading media houses all said different things. Always beats me how three journalists can be at the same scene of crime but see totally different things.

The third hilarious thing has got to do with how that police station looks like. I was born in Mombasa nearly 50 years ago. My father was a cop at that very police station that was attacked. But looking at current photographs of that station, it is obvious nothing has changed. Looks the same, probably was last painted a decade ago. Populations have soared. The number of criminals and police officers has increased tenfold. The police station looks the same. Sad.

But let us get back to the ‘terrorist’ attack in question. First, I am appalled that one of those three silly women was able to jump onto a table and stab a police officer. Twice. I note in passing that the officer’s female colleague, instead of ‘swinging into action’, took off like a bullet.

I could be wrong. I wasn’t there. All these I gleaned from media reports (by three journalists who filed three totally different stories) and social media which is as inaccurate as the gossip peddled on the bench of an estate kiosk. But assuming this account I have described is accurate, one can only conclude that the two officers sitting at the report desk of a police station of a city that has been besieged by extremist attacks for the past eight years were not armed.

Second, those two police officers, whose cubicle adjoins a cell where all manner of criminals are sharpening contraband crude weapons, did not expect that sort of attack to occur.

We see that level of unpreparedness daily, in the bored officers lounging on chairs outside banks; in the officers guarding high risk buildings who are fast asleep at 5am or picking their teeth, legs outstretched in a garden 100 metres away from the gate.

And I have seen that lack of alertness in two officers who were guarding Vigilance House. Both were talking on mobile phones, one hand in pocket, foot raised luxuriously on the raised pavement, rifle slung on the shoulder. A wannabe terrorist armed with a nail cutter could cause a lot of damage!

Guys, Kenya, and the world, has changed irredeemably. The sleepy years of yore when an officer on sentry duty could afford a snooze are forever behind us. Officer, you owe it to your parents, to your spouse and children to stay alive. Kaa ritho.