The purposeful renaming of the Kenya Police Service from the former Kenya Police Force in the spirit of the new constitution 2010 to reflect a shift from a militaristic, oppressive, and colonial- style implied by “force” to a civil, people-centered, accountable, and rights-respecting service did very little to galvanize an indeed people centered and right respecting police service that was envisioned by the Kenyan citizenry. More than ten years later, the police service manifestly need more than just a change in name, logo or motto but a comprehensive organizational reform, reviewing and possibly changing the rules, strategies, or laws that govern how police operate in Kenya including police recruitment qualification and procedures.

The current police service strongly reflects the colonial-era police force that persecuted Kenyan freedom fighters—dispossessing them of their land and subjecting Kenyans to systemic repression; the police force that forced Kenyans to be squatters in their own country, the police force that forced Kenyans to swallow the bitter pill of minority rule and racial segregation; in the manner of their operation. In the recent past, the veil that once shrouded the image of a disciplined service has, in recent times, been lifted. The wake of the Gen-z protests last year only served to highlight the perennial problem of police brutality ailing the Kenyan democratic space, a problem which in fact never even fled the roaring wave of change of a new Kenya under the new constitution in 2010.

Unfortunately, the subject of police brutality despite being a very imperative one, voiced by inter alia; civic action groups, the clergy, the international community and vigilant citizens has intentionally been left unaddressed by the sequential administrations. In fact, the issue of police brutality worsens with each passing year, metamorphosing and evolving not only in sheer scale but also in the increasingly savage ways in which citizens are treat. An even grimmer reality is the fact that, Kenya, the region’s long standing model democratic state, is coming face to face with all these atrocities more than a decade after we the people gave onto ourselves and our future generation one of the world’s most progressive constitution with a whole chapter dedicated to human rights expressly codified, which the framers of the constitution were adequately satisfied was enough to harbor good governance based on democracy and upholding of human rights, apparently it is not. While Kenya has no shortage of well-structured and progressive laws, the abiding institutional failure has been the main undoing of the country.

The very guardians sworn to uphold the sanctity of human rights have become the foremost violators, trampling upon those sacred freedoms with a cruelty and disregard that shatters the ideals once dreamt of within this region’s envisioned democratic tapestry. The Kenyan citizenry has been compelled to confront the brutal reality of state-sponsored terror, orchestrated by the police service—not in acts of embezzlement, nor in the seizure of public lands, nor in the encroachment upon protected forests as might be expected—but in the very exercise of their fundamental civic rights enshrined in Article 37 of the constitution which guarantees every person to peacefully and unarmed to assemble, demonstrate, picket, and to present petition to public authorities, while demanding accountability from their elected leaders and while standing as the last line of defense against oppressive governance. However, regimes in Kenya inherited the phobia of the masses from the colonial government and with it his mechanisms of

dealing with it. Just like the pre independence police, that was at the moment the most efficient tool deployed to be used to perpetuate minority rule by the colonialist, the Kenyan government have continuously overridden the checks and balances provided under the present constitutional dispensation and made the police force a tool to be wielded on whims of the commander in chief. As a result, the Kenyan populist view of the police service has been similar to that of the pre independence police force captured by Scott in the Raj Quartet in which he portrays Captain Merrick as; alien, alienating and alienated. Only that unlike the colonial police recruited mostly from areas peripheral to the colony, our Kenya Police Service consist of our very own fellow citizens, brothers, sisters, parents and friends.

The outcome of police deployment in protests has been tragic, the illusion of Kenya having a government based on the essential values of human rights, equality, freedom, democracy, social justice and rule of law bursts wide open and the grim reality stares at the Kenyan citizens point blank; that the government does not recognize the right of every citizen to life nor intend to protects it; that is the kind of message that is sent when an unarmed mask vendor is shot directly to the head in broad daylight by the police, that is the message that is sent when civilians mysteriously die while in police custody, that is the message sent when a toddler is murdered not on the road protesting but in their residential house by police and sure is the message sent when slain body on an innocent protester is dragged on the ground by police officers in plain sight.

As if that was not enough, a special police unit has been used to carry out arbitrary arrest and abduction aimed at scaring intimidating and making an example out of the people perceived to be in the frontline of the voices holding divergent views to the regime as should be encouraged in a democracy. There has been a spike in cases of people taken from their homes by unidentified police officers in unmarked vehicle with neither arrest warrant nor probable cause to warrant their arrest. The lucky ones have been tortured and released alive; sickly, traumatized and molested, left to tell the story, left to nurse the scars of being in a ‘democratic state governed by rule of law’ left to bear the pain of being a patriotic citizen in Kenya. The Kenya’s constitution, the National Police Service Act and the Prevention of Torture Act prohibits torture inhumane and degrading treatment- not even in the guise of law enforcement.

In fact, Article 25 of the constitution highlights freedom from torture as one of the four untouchable right and freedom. Unlike all other rights and freedom with a limitation clause, under no circumstance should a justification to torture or a degrading and inhumane treatment such as locking up a person in a dark room unclad be made under our constitution, not even during an armed conflict.

The police command chain as per the National Police Service Act under section 8A gives the Inspector General of police the sole command of the police service; subsection one explicitly states that ‘Notwithstanding the provisions of any written law, independent command of the Inspector-General in relation to the Service envisioned in Article 245(2)(b) and section 8 of the Act, means that the Inspector-General shall be responsible for all matters relating to the command and discipline of the Service subject to disciplinary control of the Commission. In executing his duties under this Act the Inspector General of police is to adhere to subsection four of the same provision that direct him to execute command by issuing lawful orders, directives or instructions to and through the deputy inspectors general. However, just like every sector of the Kenyan governance structure the constitutional and legislative mechanism dictating this arrangement has been defiled to the extent that the IG is reduced to a stooge being controlled by puppeteers to enforce the whims of the regime. Evidently, the president has been reluctant to remove IG from office despite their clearcut meeting of the grounds set out in Article 245 (7) which expressly states that; ‘The inspector general may be removed from office by the president on the ground of inter alia, (a) serious violation of this Constitution or any other law, including a contravention of Chapter Six and (f) any other just cause. Since the Inspector General to is be responsible for matters relating to discipline of the service as codified in Section 8A of the National Police Service Act, the first step in the face of the never-ending atrocities committed by police as a step of good will by the president would be to removing the IG that presided over such violations from office. On the ground of serious violation of the constitution which guarantees the right to life, the right to peacefully protest demonstrate and picket, and the freedom of expression.

Article 26(3) of the Kenyan constitution states that ‘A person shall not be deprived of life intentionally, except to the extent authorized by this Constitution or other written law.’ Further, section 61 and 62 of the National Police Service Act permits a police officer to use lethal force as a last resort to the necessary extent that is proportionate to the threat faced. This is the section that must have justified shooting of Boniface Kariuki who posed an imminent threat to the police since he was armed with his objects of trade, face masks, same was with Baby Pendo who whilst in her mother’s bosom posed a threat to the police and therefore lethal force had to be applied on her.

In the Kenya envisioned by the framers of the constitution, an ideal Kenya, a law-abiding Kenya, a Kenya with functional institutions lead by the rule of law; no point during demonstration would police be justifiably discharge let alone fire live rounds of ammunition during protest. A Kenyan armed with the national flag, placards, and a spirit thirsty change does not at any point pose any danger warranting application of lethal force whatsoever. At least not by a patriotic police officer, not by a police officer adhering to Section 49 of the National Police Service Act requiring him to perform his duty in in a lawful manner with respect to regulation and Service Standing orders to the best of their ability.

Even though the Gen-Z protest in 2024 received major acclamation and media coverage, it was not the first and sadly not even the worst of police brutality; just a year before, Kenyans had succumbed to police brutality during the anti-finance bill 2023 protest which were led by then opposition leader Raila Odinga. IPOA took up a few documented cases up for ‘investigation’, as they always do and two year later nothing has happened; families torn apart have failed to get answers as to the deaths of their kins and the elusive justice continuously evade their faces. The victims have been left defenseless and unshielded, lost in the misty complex web of procedural technicalities and a sheer absence in their quest for their shield and defender, justice. Only a visitor in Jerusalem would have expected otherwise. Not when the 2017 cases taken up for investigation have been inconclusive to date.

The Kenya National Human Right Commission documented and reported 31 deaths, 553 injuries and 485 arrests that resulted from demonstrations held in June and July (including the saba saba demonstrations). Last year, the commission had documented over 50 deaths 413 injuries with autopsy results showing most victims had succumbed to gunshot wounds. Too often, these figures are dismissed as nothing more than sterile statistics on some economic chart, as though they were just entries in a ledger. Yet each number hides a life — a person who was the entire world to someone else, a breadwinner whose toil kept a family afloat, a devoted son or daughter who bore the quiet hopes of aging parents, a patriot who dared, in love of Kenya, to demand the leadership owed to them by right. But to the regime, such defiance was nothing less than blasphemy — a crime worse than treason — and so they were condemned to die by the sword, even though they had never so much as lifted it.

In conclusion, the failures of the National Police Service are but the tip of the iceberg — a mere glimmer of the deep, chronic rot corroding Kenya’s institutions. The resulting police brutality has morphed into a ravenous black hole, devouring the nation’s finest sons and daughters without remorse. It falls upon every citizen to rise and be counted against this tyranny, as demanded both by God and by the Constitution of Kenya. To remain silent now is to lend one’s quiet consent — to become an accomplice in the grand theatre of oppression.