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The main entrance of DCI headquarters on Kiambu road. [David Njaaga, Standard]
The disbandment of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) unit following a directive by President William Ruto is a move in the right direction.
While issuing the directive last week, the president accused the Special Service Unit officers of turning into killers instead of protectors.
Indeed, it is not a secret that we have trigger-happy police officers. For years, the police have been dogged by allegations of extrajudicial killings. Many people have been killed or 'disappeared', and fingers mostly point at some amorphous squads within the service.
In February 2020, for instance, a report by Missing Voices, a consortium of organisations pushing for the ending of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, indicated that at least 107 Kenyans were killed by police in 2019 alone.
Early this year, the same group reported that there were 219 police killings and enforced disappearances in 2021. Out of these, they said, 187 people were victims of police killings.
Unfortunately, despite such incriminating reports, police have done little to bring to justice those (suspected to be in their midst) who commit the heinous crimes. The police top brass is either reluctant or incapable of handling this matter with the seriousness it deserves.
That must come to a stop now. The acknowledgment by none other than the president of the existence of killer squads within the police service should serve as a wake-up call for us to deal with this rot once and for all.
Disbanding the so-called elite unit is not enough. It is important that investigations be launched and any officer within the unit or any other cadres of the police service who might have engaged in extrajudicial killings be brought to book. They must pay for every drop of blood they have shed. Transferring errant officers is transferring a problem.
That will send a strong message that policing is not about killing suspects anyhow; that even the lives of the suspects that police find most odious matters.
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