NAIROBI, Kenya Sep 18 – An Administration Policeman went on a shooting rampage on Saturday night and killed two people outside a bar in Riruta Satellite after an argument with his colleagues.
Witnesses said the officer had been drinking with his colleagues at New Mukaro bar on Naivasha road when they suddenly started fighting over a woman. The man later stormed out and vowed to come back armed.
“He was arguing with some policemen who were seated with a woman and another man, and when they fought and pushed him out, he told them that they will shortly know who he is, that is when he stormed out,” a witness said.
After a few minutes, the AP is reported to have gone back armed and started looking for his colleagues and another man who had allegedly snatched his girlfriend.
When he missed them in the bar, witnesses said he walked out and started shooting indiscriminately and when the sound bursts of his G3 rifle went silent, a disabled man and a woman were lying on the ground lifeless.
Dagoreti District Commissioner Cornelius Wamalwa said the rogue AP was arrested moments later when he went to a neighbouring bar and started taking alcohol.
“He is in custody. He will definitely have to face his crimes in court this week,” Mr Wamalwa said.
Nairobi Provincial Police chief Anthony Kibuchi said the officer is attached to the Dagoreti DC’s office.
He said they had commenced an investigation into the killings and urged anybody who witnessed or have any information about the incident to volunteer.
“The AP has been arrested and he is with us, if you have any information we would like you to share with us because we want to know what exactly happened,” Kibuchi said when he visited the scene on Sunday morning.
Residents interviewed in the area on Sunday described the AP as a troublesome man who likes threatening people.
“The AP is well known in this area, but he is very troublesome because he likes fighting,” Kennedy Ambani who was in the bar at the time said.
Guards at the bar where the incident occurred declined to allow journalists access to the premises on citing firm instructions from managers there.
Ali Mwamburi, a brother to the deceased man told Capital News that his brother was in the bar but was not party to the argument between the AP and other men.
“My brother was a disabled man, surely, I don’t know why the AP had to shoot at him because he could not run for his dear life and in fact he was not even part of that argument,” he said when we visited his house located less that 500 metres away from the New Mukaro bar where the incident occurred.
He said he had been to the City Mortuary where he positively identified the body of his brother.
Police declined to release the name of the woman who was shot alongside the disabled man, saying the next of kin had not been informed.
Incidents of police officers running amok and shooting innocent civilians is on the increase in the country, despite assurances from Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere that he had devised ways of dealing with the situation.
Iteere has previously blamed such incidents on poor stress management amongst his officers.
In July, a policeman in Tana River District shot dead his girlfriend and another officer, before he was gunned down barely two months after a police constable at Parklands Police station in Nairobi went berserk and shot dead his boss, injured a colleague before killing himself.
In March this year, another police officer was charged with murder after he shot dead two of his seniors before he injured another one in Nanyuki.
And in February this year, a GSU officer in Mombasa rained 14 bullets on his boss and then killed himself.
Last year in November, an Administration Police constable shot 10 people dead before attempting to kill himself but surrendered after he realized he had run out of bullets. The incident also involved a love triangle.
The worrying trends of such police killings have been linked to frustrations of police officers due to poor pay among other numerous challenges.
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