Over the past week, eight police officers have been arrested and charged over the deaths of brothers Benson and Emanuel Njiru in Kianjokoma, Embu, on the one hand, and that of Vitalis Owino in Mathare, Nairobi.

They all died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. On Wednesday, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) directed the Inspector General of National Police Service to interdict the senior officer in charge of the Manyatta Police Station in Embu and the Officer in Charge of the Police District.

This was because there is evidence to suggest they were part of a cover-up in the two tragic killings. This indicates a major shift in the DPP’s attitude regarding police accountability in terms of individual and command responsibility.

Command or superior responsibility is criminal culpability for failure by a superior officer to act where it can be shown that despite the officer’s awareness of the crimes of those under his command, he intentionally failed to fulfil his duties to report, prevent and punish the crimes. Usually, there has to be a link between the accused and those who committed the offences at the time of the commission of the crime.

Because of systemic challenges and especially the “blue code of silence” which is an unwritten rule that forbids police officers from reporting other police officers’ misconduct - accountability has been far in between. It is rare that enough evidence would ever be collected to sustain a charge or even an inquiry. This is compounded by the tendency of members of the public and the media to believe the official police narrative.

For this reason, the police reforms post-2010 Constitution created the civilian-led Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) to impartially investigate police misconduct; and emphasised police accountability and professionalism.

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Under the 6th Schedule of the NPS Act, police officers must provide medical assistance to persons that they injure in the course of duty and should inform their families and report to their superiors who then report to IPOA for investigations where a death occurs. Although it is an offence to fail to report to IPOA, this has never been enforced.

In the Kianjokoma incident, the 6th schedule wasn’t followed. The superiors tried to ‘spin’ the narrative that the brothers jumped from a moving police vehicle without the officers' knowledge, and that they only noticed they were missing when they got to the police station.

Although command responsibility is not expressly provided for under our laws such as the Criminal Procedure Code and the NPS Act, the courts, the DPP and IPOA have begun exploring its use as is inferred in the 6th Schedule of the NPS Act. Recently, they have elected to seek joint collective responsibility where there is evidence a police unit was involved in an unlawful act.

The death of six-month-old Baby Pendo in August 2017 comes to mind where an inquest found five police bosses who served in Kisumu during the General Election culpable and requested DPP to take action against them. It is noteworthy that they are yet to be charged.

The National Assembly should move with speed and provide for command responsibility to ensure real accountability and end cover-ups.