The Mumias Police brutality is unacceptable and an infringement of the constitution

“The Police must obey the law while enforcing the law” Earl Warren

When the people of Kenya on August 4^th 2010 came out in numbers to vote for the new Constitution, they knew what they had gone through and what they wanted. They wanted change. They wanted a new Kenya where human rights and dignity are respected notwithstanding status and gender among others.

In many occasions the police have never been known for anything good despite the fact that we have good police officers. And there have been minimal efforts to clean the name of the police service. There’s a general laxity and acceptance that the police must be feared as opposed to respected.

It is just recently that a report was released blaming the police of ferocity against the public. People have been in police cells and stations and no one comes out with a good report. Harassment, corruption, abuse among other vices are some of the things you meet at police stations. Mary Frances Berry argues that when you have police officers who abuse citizens, you erode the public confidence in law enforcement. She further says that that makes the job of good police officers unsafe.

Since the inception of the new constitutional dispensation, the frosty relationship between the police and the general public has never been resolved. The general public see no friend in a police. Crimes are never reported because the police are never trusted. Informers have in some cases turned out to be suspects or exposed by the police.

Back to the brutalities witnessed against the people at Mumias after an attack at the Booker Police Post is an act of backwardness. It’s pre-cambric for lack of a better word. Gone are the days of communal offences. Each person must pay for his actions not the entire community.

In the past when a police officer died or lost a gun within a village no matter the reason, the general service unit officers could be deployed in that village to beat up people to disclose the killers of thieves. The dreaded Fanya Fujo Uone (FFU) squad of the General Service Unit (GSU) rained on innocent people and children including chicken ruthlessly. At that time the police were the law and law enforcers themselves.

During such operations, theft of peoples’ valuables and destruction of property were the order of the day. Raping and defilement of wives and young girls were reported but no actions taken. During the Westgate attack, the police officers were caught on camera looting from shops they went to secure and some officers were prosecuted for stealing and being in possession of stolen valuables.

It is doleful that such kinds of operations are alive in this era. What the GSU officers did to the people of Mumias is detestable, callous and disparages the achievements of the new Constitution.

In fact, the first suspects should be the police themselves as this could as well be an inside job. How could they leave a station with one officer? Then, was there any intelligence report of an imminent attack on that station? The government needs to introspectively search its house before transferring its failure, anger and frustrations to the innocent Kenyans.

Article 10 Clause 2(b) of the Constitution on National Values requires all state organs and state officers to uphold human dignity, social justice and human rights among. The manner in which the GSU officers responded on a theft at a police station failed to observe article 10. The police actions amounted to an infringement of the Constitution and the parties affected can successfully seek legal redress.

That notwithstanding, the brutality against the innocent people should not fall on deaf ear for the police to run away with it. We need an explanation and action taken to specific officers who violated people's rights. The name police force was changed to police service but the force remained intact.