Officers must use safer methods to control crowds

The death of a former mayor during an attempt to quell a demonstration in Kitui Town underscores the brutal way in which authorities react to contain protests. Ms Martha Mwangangi was killed when a fire engine truck owned by Kitui County was dispatched to contain the demonstration, but rather than use water from its hoses to control the masses, the truck driver ploughed into a crowd of demonstrators, crushing the former mayor to death. Former Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu survived by a whisker, possibly saved by the action of one of her aides who shoved her out of harm’s way

The demonstrators who were protesting over the demolition of their kiosks are not the first lot to be exposed to high-handed actions by authorities when they are called in to quell riots. Newspapers and television programmes are replete with images of brutal suppressive actions by police and other security agents when they are deployed to contain demonstrations. And even when these images are broadcast to millions of viewers, often no action is taken against perpetrators of these high-handed actions, giving law enforcement officers the impression that they have the carte blanche to deal with protestors in the most violent fashion and they need not worry about facing the consequences for their illegal actions.

Often, the police and other law enforcement officers have justified their violent actions by claiming that the protests are illegal. Sometimes they have argued that the demonstrators had become uncontrollable. And even when their violent actions have been so horrific so as to trigger a public outcry, condemnations from superiors have been muted. This was possibly one of the reasons why the top command of the Kenya Police Service was brought before judges during the International Criminal Court trials at The Hague over the killing of rioting civilians.

The law prescribes legal mechanisms to control crowds, and a violent response is often a last resort. Even when violence is prescribed as a deterrent, the weapons and methods used are those that are designed to inflict the least amount of injuries, whether one is talking about the use of tear gas or rubber bullets.

When legal methods of crowd control are disregarded because extra-judicial methods have been employed, security agents who abuse their authority must be prosecuted after the circumstances surrounding their interventions have been investigated.

Therefore while many may be tempted to ascribe guilt to the driver of the fire engine truck that ploughed into the crowd in Kitui, it would be prudent to wait for the outcome of the investigations.

The Kitui incident should offer vital lessons to security agents or law enforcement officers. They cannot afford to be casual in the way they handle such incidents. More people would have died in Kitui and consequences could have been catastrophic — and that is a lesson we must not forget.