By Felix Omondi
Over the years, many residents of Mathare and other slums across Nairobi have lost brothers, friends and neighbors through the nozzle of police guns for flimsy excuses,from dressing in a particular way to being unproven suspects of criminal activities; to stray bullets fired to disperse protests.
Despite the high number of these killings, no redress has ever come from the police.
An organization deep in the heart of Mathare slums has, over the past one and half years, been struggling to make a list of extra-judicial killings committed by the police in the area since 2008.
This organization, known as Mathare Social Justice Center (MSJC), was started with the aim of raising a voice to the unconstitutional killings in the area.
An extra-judicial killing is the killing of a person by governmental authorities without the sanction of any judicial proceeding or legal process.
So far, the group has been able to document a total of 25 cases of extra-judicial police violence that were committed between 2008 and 2015 across Mathare, Huruma and Kiamaiko.
Journey of a thousand miles
This documentation process, the group says, has been a struggle because many community members are afraid of giving out names of people who have died under such circumstances.
Even when they report these cases, they are too afraid of being identified as witnesses for fear of police retaliation. This is why the group believes that the number could be higher than what they have been able to document.
Steven Mwangi, MSJC’s coordinator, says that by April this year, they had already received 15 victims of police brutality. He estimates that they could receive reports of up to 50 youths a year who are killed by the police.
The constitutional right to life is evidently thrown out by police who are able to kill so many people unconstitutionally with no consequences.
Antony Moki, who is the chairman of the extra judicial killings department at MSJC, says he is an ex-convict who reformed after serving a 5-year sentence at the Industrial Area Remand Prison for robbery with violence. He now uses his prior experiences and current position at MSJC to advise and guide youth to shun the life of crime.
Moki believes that one of the reasons why the police kill people in this unconstitutional manner is so that they can curb the crime rate in areas around the slum where the crime rate is high.
“The police do not believe in correctional justice where the suspects are taken to court and if found guilty they are sentenced to jail, instead they just kill at will saying they have no time for court cases,” says Moki.
He goes on to say that more often than not, police kill these suspects because they do not have any evidence to present in court that can link the suspects to the purported crime they’ve committed.
“People should know that it is unconstitutional for the police to be shooting so freely, that the ones who are committing crimes are the police themselves,” he says.
But more often than not, many residents of the slum areas are not aware about the law and the police use this ignorance to shoot and kill anyone since they know that no action will be taken against them.
A USSD Human Rights report conducted in 2012 noted that “Police killed numerous criminal suspects, often claiming that they violently resisted arrest or were armed.”
There seems to be a rising trend where children below the age of 18 and even those below the age of 14 are being shot at and killed.
Unending list of victims
Out of the 25 victims documented on the MSJC website, 10 are below 18 years while 7 out of the 10 are believed to be below 14 years of age, most of whom were killed for flimsy excuses.
16-year-old Steven Gisheru met his demise on May 17, 2015 at Kiamaiko after he was shot dead by the police. The police then, allegedly, placed a gun and a knife by him to frame him as though he had been armed before he was shot.
In March 2014, police in Huruma shot down four young thirteen to sixteen-year-olds; Emmanuel, Saulo, Jumalo and Kibe. While the police alleged that they were stealing, other reports say that the kids surrendered and when the police came they wanted to be taken to jail instead. But the police followed them to where they were hiding and shot them all multiple times and framed them with knives.
Fast forward to April 2015, 13-year-old Rashid Juma and his friend John Kiarie, who were still in their school uniforms with their school bags, were found at the Huruma sports ground smoking marijuana and the police shot them.
When their families went to Huruma police station to protest, it is reported that they were given a list of 35 other people who needed to be shot. 14-year-old Gordon was shot at Shantit area in Mathare by the police who later claimed it was mistaken identity.
The police have also been known for using live bullets when dispersing crowds during demonstrations. The stray bullets have led to the injury and deaths of a lot of people in the slums.
Joseph Karanja was, on April 9, 2013, shot by the police at Mau Mau road in Mathare after chaos broke out when Uhuru was elected as president.On Oct. 15, 2015, Michael Njehu was shot on the leg by a stray bullet while at his home in Korogocho.
Since finishing his exams last October, he has been going to Kenyatta Hospital every Thursday to check on his leg which is now reported to be twisted. Michael reported the case to the same police station where the police who shot him came from.
His family has not even been able to receive a P3 form from the police station. The police have now been threatening him, his brother and his brother’s friend to drop the case– his brother’s friend is reported to have even received death threats.
When asked whether the police reforms would do anything to help with the situation, Mwangi, the MSCJ coordinator, said that the reforms are picking up very slowly and there are no signs of any changes any time soon.
But there’s some hope as the group recently picked up a case where the OCS at Babadogo police station shot a young man. The case is now in court and the officer is in remand at the industrial area remand prison.
The group has also been able to hold meetings across the five wards of Mathare constituency where they held dialogue with residents on police abuse of power and on police killings. They also conduct civic education to residents on their rights.
Residents are advised to report any case of police shootings to the MSJC center in Mathare, the Kenya National Center for Human Rights (KNHCR), desks at Huduma center in Eastleigh, the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) or at The Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU).
Efforts to reach the police to comment on these issues were futile as the OCS at the Johnsaga Huruma Police station said that she was not obliged to speak on matters pertaining to the stations operations and advised Ghetto Mirror to see the OCPD who was not around at the time of this paper going to print
Ghetto Mirror 