That footage is scandalous. I am appalled and shocked and dismayed. Words fail me.

I was shocked and appalled to say the least! From what I saw these two men did not have molotov cocktails, stones or machetes in their hands. Just rubbery faces. I guess the shoot to kill policy is in force, anything that moves and isn’t in police uniform is fair game at this point seems to be the rule.
Sadder still the fact that the victims are slum dwellers will make sure they die faceless.
As for the twins, who knows their folk must have hidden their birth details from them but still, it’s gross!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have not seen the footage as yet. Slow internet and all. I will catch up with the news when back home but I have seen it mentioned in many blogs.

As for those twins…. maybe the dates they were given by their adoptive parents were also different

Excessive use of force…and disgusting..after you shoot the man you kick him? why to make sure he is dead?

I mean i could see if they guy had weapon of some sort. But just making funny faces?

i watched that in utter shock on the the news last night. is that what human life has been reduced to?

There is absolutely no way you can justify the killing of unarmed citizens ( i don’t care whether you call them rioters or protesters) by a battalion of highly trained cops with sophisticated assault rifles! That is a serious outrage and I am appalled that a couple of people here have the audacity to even attempt to make it look ok. Injustices should be judged on their individual merits. Emotions tend to cloud reason resulting in irrational action (my sympathies to those who’ve lost loved ones in the recent chaos) but two wrongs don’t make a right. If the govt. decides to indiscriminately take blanket action on all acts of lawlessness, then the constitution serves no purpose at all, and they (govt.) could as well declare Kenya a police state.

Our poor Kenya! Have we all gone mad? One thing that seem obvious is that the counting of votes was done dishonestly. How is that the fault of the prople who simply cast their votes, for whatever politician? Luos, Kikuyus, police, all of us – maybe the answer is to join together (PEACEFULLY) to insist on a recount? We surely want this land governed by honest men and women who have the courage to face truth. We are a democracy. That means having the freedom to cast your vote whichever way you choose, the right to have your vote counted fairly, and the responsibility to abide by the outcome. Let’s get it together. Harambee, anyone?

WEll, it’s all right to take the righteous indignation road when the police kill protesters, but what do you want them to do instead? Seriously, give alternatives to the present methods of dealing with these Interahamwe wannabes. Why was there not a word said against these people when they Combed Rift Valley and Kisumu for innocent Kikuyus to Kill? Was it because you assumed that they deserved to die for their crime of being from the same tribe as Kibaki? If you are protesting injustice, then you must acknowledge that these people aren’t as innocent as you proclaim!

Amerucan- Please read my comment carefully. I didnt say the guy in the film was a looter. I talked about the people who are using this mass protests to engage in wanton looting for their self gratification. Those are the ones I have no sympathy with for being shot.

As for the extra-judicial killings, I think Ali done finally lost his mind. Even during Moi’s time, nothing like this happened. We are now witnessing the making of a Hitler/Amin

Toiyoi,

So who killed the Kikuyu’s KamJesh and Taleban trained in Sudan? Stop spreading such rumours, we who know better are the only thing Kenya’s got.

Udi and all those trying to link this with other incidents of violence.
The police failed in their duty to protect kenyan lives in Eldoret [stike 1].
How should they remedy this? You would think they would quickly appoint a police task force and special prosecuter to investigate and prosecute ALL those involved in the eldoret killings [strike 2]

Instead they compound on their failure by moving a couple of hundred miles north and shoot at unarmed jesters [strike 3].

Condemining the violence is not enough, please ask these usurper to step aside

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1704564,00.html

“Perhaps the most discouraging sign for the protesters came from Odinga himself. On Wednesday, he had scolded reporters when asked if he would risk arrest and march on the park, telling them that he was not afraid and reminding them he had spent nine years in the jails of autocratic President Daniel arap Moi. Yet on Thursday, the man with a reputation as a fiery, charismatic populist struck a sour note when he told reporters that his advisers had warned him that it was too dangerous to try to march, even though central Nairobi had been quiet. Asked how he felt not being able to join his supporters, Odinga replied: “I feel great.”"

My God rest in peace the souls of all innocent Kenyans who have died as a result of selfish politicians. It pains me to see so many Kenyan bloggers and their fans justifying hatred & the killing of innocent Kenyans. Who in their right mind would die or kill for Kibaki,Ruto,Raila..??? Remember all these guys are products and big beneficiaries of the Moi regime.

At least there is an editor who is also thinking along my lines

http://www.bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5371&Itemid=5854

Editorial: Stop these goons Print E-mail
Written by Administrator
January 18, 2008: Political activism notwithstanding, we cannot afford economic saboteurs in our midst. We have witnessed the crippling of the lakeside town of Kisumu’s economy with scores of entrepreneurs leaving for good after losing their property to looters, goons and arsonists.

Eldoret town is on its knees too. Trenches have been dug across main roads, illegal roadblocks have sprung up, bridges brought down and public offices burnt down across Nyanza and Rift Valley provinces.

On Thursday, we saw goons try to derail a train in Kibera slums of Nairobi. In word, goons are bringing down what tax payers painfully built. Agitation for change cannot be achieved via economic destruction and sabotage.

Sanity must prevail since we will all pay a heavy price for the self-destruction we are going through. The days when nations thrived and emerged from the ashes of war and ruins are over. After the last embers die out, we will still have a nation to build, and an economy to run. Our politicians are not helping us either.

It is time we separated the reformists in our streets from goons taking advantage of the crackdown on Orange Democratic Movement rallies. It is time we separated hard-liners from moderates in both President Kibaki’s camp and the Raila Odinga’s group.

The MPs have left their institution solid and unharmed. It is the poor man’s economy that has been hurt by the ongoing political push.

The young man the police shot dead had a name: Olago

Tale of killer bullets in Kisumu

Story by COSMAS BUTUNYI and WALTER MENYA
Publication Date: 1/18/2008

Theatre of the absurd by police was captured by TV cameramen as a trigger-happy officer snuffed out the life of hapless Olago Junior who had joined others for a peaceful protest in Kisumu.

Olago, who was killed on Wednesday, was not armed, not even with a stone. But he was never to return home alive.

Although the right to peaceful assembly is one of the cornerstones of democracy and is enshrined in Chapter Five of Kenya’s Constitution, the police bullet stood in the way for Olago Junior.

A police officer brandishing an AK-47 rifle charged at him and his friends as they danced and made faces, shooting him dead and injuring his friend on the shoulder.

Kisumu, a stronghold of ODM leader Raila Odinga, who accuses President Kibaki of stealing the December 27 poll, has suffered the worst police brutality. More than 70 people have been killed in the town, most of them shot dead by police. Six have been killed in the latest round of protests.

Rights groups have blamed this on what they call a shoot-to-kill policy by the police and use of live ammunition against protestors.

One of the casualties succumbed to bullet wounds at Bandani Estate.The woman whose name was given as Judith Namukuru was reportedly killed by a bullet that teared through her tin-walled shanty. Her eight-year- old daughter who was also in the House was unhurt.

Other demonstrators were shot in Otonglo area on Kisumu-Busia road, which became the main battleground for the better part of the day.

Protestors lit bonfires on the road as they engaged police in running battles.

Commonwealth and other observers have described the elections as failing to meet international standards. The killing of Olago was brought right into the living rooms of Kenyans and the world by TV cameras. After the killing, the police officer then turned to his wounded friend and kicked him even as he writhed in pain besides Olago’s lifeless body.

Manyatta area, which served as Olago’s home, was sealed off by police Thursday.

Once again, the killing has brought into sharp focus what human rights agencies have described a shoot-to-kill order being implemented by police in Kisumu and elsewhere against unarmed Kenyans.

People who knew Olago said he did menial jobs in the lakeside town to survive.

Journalists who tried to venture into the crowded Manyatta estate were threatened with dire consequences.

Beyond the horrifying pictures of perceived brutality are families counting losses of their loved ones who were also felled by bullets. By Thursday, the toll had hit six.

Both felled

The perception that death could be met only in the streets is also becoming a myth as residents recount tales of women and children being hit by bullets at home.

Ms Rosa Akinyi was hit by misfortune for the second time since the controversial polls. She lost her husband in circumstances that were strikingly similar to those that led to her brother’s death earlier. Both were felled by bullets in Manyatta estate during the post-election protests.

While her brother was shot dead in the first round of skirmishes that rocked Kisumu immediately after the announcement of election results, her husband died on Wednesday as the three-day mass action called by ODM kicked off.

Rosa fought back tears as she recounted her last moments with George Odunga, the father of her nine-year-old son.

After taking lunch with his family, which turned out to be their last meal together, she says Mr Odunga left home. He returned about three hours later and ventured out to visit a relative who lived nearby.

Not long after he left, gunshot fire rent the air. She would later learn that one of victims was her husband.

According to Mr Odunga’s friend, Esau Ochir, who was with him when he was shot, they had been chatting with some friends when a contingent of police officers arrived in a van.

They alighted and split in two groups of three officers each.

“They began shooting at whoever they saw in sight and so we took off,” he explained.

As they fled, he added, the officers shot at them, and as fate would have it, one of the bullets caught Mr Odunga, killing him instantly. His body was taken to the Nyanza Provincial General Hospital mortuary, where his brother-in-law’s body has been lying for the past two weeks.

Mr Ochir says as they were taking Mr Odunga’s body to the mortuary on a hand cart, they encountered a seriously wounded victim.

They lifted him onto the cart and dropped him off at the hospital’s casualty department before proceeding to the mortuary.

As the Odunga family mourns, only a few metres away in the same estate friends and relatives of 10-year-old Salim Ahmed are also in mourning.

The Standard Four pupil at Obinju primary school in Kisumu was also felled by a policeman’s bullet on Wednesday.

His mother, Mrs Halima Ali, says Salim was shot as he played with a friend a short distance away from the house.

Mrs Ali said she was at home when she was alerted that her son had been shot. On rushing to the scene, she found the boy lying in a pool of blood.

His body was carried back to their house, where it stayed overnight. It was transferred to the Nyanza Provincial General Hospital mortuary Thursday for post-mortem before burial later in the day.

Bitterness was evident in the mother’s face, as she narrated events leading to the death of her son.

“Police who were pursuing protesters started shooting indiscriminately without establishing who the protesters were,” she said amid sobs.

Mrs Ali claims police also lobbed tear gas canisters into their house.

“We voted for peace but it seems like that was our worst mistake, with police killing innocent people who know little about politics,” Mrs Ali said.

Salim’s friend who was with him at the time of the shooting escaped with no injuries. He was, however, still in shock and was yet to come to terms with the death of his friend.

The boy could barely speak to journalists who visited their house. Manyatta Estate seemed to be the worst hit in Kisumu.

Apart from the two deaths, many walls bear bullets marks, a testimony of the trigger-happy nature of the police.

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=39&newsid=114845

@Udi
Your pathetic on your first Post.

The second Post (#28) shows that, in your mind, since these “Goons” are causing economic hardships, why, just shoot them.

Assuming that were the case, a question: The boy shot in Kisumu at the Kondele slums, what item was he destroying in the slum? Question, the Eldoret case that you mention, how come no one was shot during that event? BS.

Secondly, while i do not support the destruction of property, i can understand the frustration of the oppressed.

I also predict which side you would have taken in these situations:
(i) During the Mau Mau rebellion: Udi would have sided with the settlers, since the Mau Mau were destroying the settlers’ property
(ii) ANC uprising in South Africa: UDI sides with the boers, since the blacks are causing economic difficuty in the mines
(iii) Civil rights movement of the 60s: Udi supports segregationists.( Yet now he hides with his tail b/n his legs in the USA, enjoying the sweat of those who fought for the comfort and rights he now enjoys )
(iv) ALL resistance to oppression: Udi sides with Oppressors.

Now, we know what Udi stands for.

Any way you slice it, that was cold-blooded murder and it’s likely that the victim won’t get justice despite all the evidence.

I don’t think any peace-loving Kenyan wants killers with badges and guns roaming the streets with loaded weapons and no accountability for their actions. If they are indeed frustrated with their daily grind, they should resign and let more restrained people take on that task, that is, those who value and respect life.

One function of the police is to deal with difficult situations so, in fact, the protest rallies and riots do concern them regardless of their involvement in causing them as they are charged with keeping the peace during such eventualities. If they have to, they may legally use reasonable force to subdue alleged criminals and use lethal force only as a last resort.

The footage in question shows the two civilian men fleeing from the policeman and I think we can all agree his personal safety wasn’t in any kind of jeopardy moments before, and most certainly not during or after the brutal moments captured on “tape”.
This guy was on a rampage, he had to kill someone before the day was over. It’s just pure evil.

Utumishi Kwa Wote? That’s a hot, steamy pile of BS, and everyone knows that.
The countdown to a Kenya meltdown has been slow but sure and will soon hit critical mass if the maladies ailing the country aren’t remedied expeditiously.

@ udi

Your statement about the ODM leaders not having their children on the streets was shared by Naomi Shaban yesterday. In a moment of madness, I flipped channels to KBC during the 7pm news bulletin. And Shaban was saying that ODM leaders have tucked their children safely in mansions and are telling poor people to protest. I flipped the channels again and at that precise time, KTN was showing Ntimama’s daughter being tear gassed!

The bottom line is that as long as a protest is peaceful, then the police should not break it up. They can even walk by the side just observing the protesters to ensure no violence erupts. But to try to be clairvoyant and say ‘if they march, they will loot’ is being untruthful. By repulsing protesters from Uhuru Park into the CBD, the police just end up making things worse.

toiyoi,

if it is true then it is very disturbing indeed, These politicians are taking Kenyans for a ride, at the very first sign of trouble they will ship their families overseas and the rest of us will slaughter each mercilessly on the streets. That is what bothers me more….

Fighting for Justice and equality is vital but at the expense of the lives of our families, relatives and countrymen

The footage on that clip is simply outrageous!! While I do not in any way condone the incidences of looting and hooliganism that we have witnessed since the “mass demos” started, it is improper to shoot an unarmed person.

And to those insisting for the ODM Pentagon members’ sons and daughters being on the streets, does it really make a difference? Are they more human/Kenyan than the rest of the Kenyans who feel cheated and betrayed?

Another sad day for our country..What a mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. I agree totally with all of you who condemn this callous and cowardly action by the people who are supposed to be custodians of the peace. I have no words to say to those hypocrites who are pretending that this is a law-and-order issue and blaming the victims. Is this cop still at large? Who is his commanding officer? Someone should be held accountable.

There is another disturbing thought that comes to mind as I read this. All this senseless bloodletting is doing something terrible to our psyche. So many dead and we stop thinking. We begin to talk in numbers….hundreds, thousands…who knows maybe more. In the height of the ‘insurgency’ in Iraq hundreds of people would die on a single day in a series of car bomb attacks. Even mosques were not spared by the suicide bombers.

It would seem that there is a Kenya police strategy of brutalising a certain section of soceity now just like they did with ‘mungiki’ last june-july. We must I regret, prepare ourselves for more.

Since the subject is on the table, I thought I’d toss my peni mbili’s worth in.

With respect to the children of the political elite, the sense of loss is usually seemingly greater to the families, the public and the world at large when the child of an influential and famous person perishes especially under suspicious circumstances or perishes, period. The demise of an average citizen or God forbid, a slum-dweller, is just an instance of good riddance to some people since they are completely detached and unaffected [directly] by such events.

When Udi asks, Where are the kids of the men and women involved in this power struggle? Shouldn’t they be on the streets bleeding and getting teargassed alongside the rest?
It’s a valid response to situations like this, in fact, we all know that the war in Iraq is being fought by young Americans from average American families and yet the most of the children of those who sent them to die are out of harms way. Those opposed to the war are always bringing that subject up.
The idea is that, if one’s child was to remain in harms way due to their actions or inaction, he/she would move quicker to remedy the situation than if his/her entire family was tucked away in a safe(r) place.

It’s universally true that money and influence will buy you almost anything in this world, therefore, I wouldn’t be surprised if the families of the elite were quietly whisked out of the country if or when the shit hit’s the fan. Of course, this also applies to those with just the means to do it less the influence which leaves the rest stuck knee-deep in a crappy situation that they had nothing to do with.

I totally get it and I’m sure the police are less inclined to shoot at a heavy hitter’s kid if they recognized them. If there were enough of them out there protesting and they made their presence duly known, it’s possible that there would be less police brutality in some areas. Still, I don’t think that would be enough to get the government to give in to the pressure.

@TK- I just read that time article. Why do I feel he was misquoted? I dont see how he can sema he feels great about not joining his supporters. That just doesnt sound like him.

I am in tears.I can’t help it any more,my beloved country is dying!
Raila and Kibaki should be as guilty as that policeman in the clip.The Policemen look like hungry lions released from a cage after a month bila kula.They shoot to kill. They should pay,one day one time.

Here is a clip of the whole incidence from BBC (which also includes part of the KTN clip). Those cops are not being provoked. They just seem to be trigger happy. Coz you would even have expected they use those water tanks they have

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7190000/newsid_7192000/7192077.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1