Officer jailed for shooting student

A police officer was last week found guilty of attempting to kill a high school student six years ago.

The shooting happened at around 8.30pm on September 25, 2014 and after several months of investigations, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) recommended that the officer be charged with attempted murder.

And last week, Edward Makokha was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the charge.

According to IPOA, the police officer shot Ibrahim Hassan Shid, then a Form Four student at Banane township in Garissa County.

On the fateful night, Shid together with two other secondary school students from Banane Secondary School, were seated in a dimly-lit kiosk when Makokha walked in and snatched his mobile phone.

Shid demanded to have his phone back and in the ensuing altercation, the officer shot him twice in close range, leaving him for dead. The student was shot in the chin and thigh.

“Outside the kiosk, and without any provocation, the officer warned that he would shoot, a threat he executed within a fraction of a second before fleeing, according to witnesses,” IPOA said.

A further recommendation by the police watchdog to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was that a case of causing grievous harm to the student, which had been filed by the police, be withdrawn in favour of the attempted murder charge.

During the hearing, 12 witnesses including four police officers were called and additional forensic evidence presented at the Garissa law courts.

Shid survived the ordeal but missed sitting the national exams that year due to his injuries.

The disgraced officer joins others who have been found to have misused their powers to enforce the law to the disadvantage of innocent citizens.