Inspector-General David Kimaiyo moves to calm police units

The police chief has ordered his senior officers to work together irrespective of the units they command.

The move by Inspector-General David Kimaiyo seeks to cool tensions that threaten to break relationships among the units under him.

In a statement, Mr Kimaiyo urged the officers and especially the commanders to work in harmony “and cultivate strong comradeship”, adding, “there is no bad blood among my officers.”

ONE OF THEIR OWN

The statement seemed to refer to an incident in Kisumu on Sunday where armed AP officers stormed Central Police Station to protest after one of their own and a civilian were shot dead during a robbery the previous day in Manyatta Estate.

They felt their colleagues in the Kenya Police had killed him unjustifiably.

Noting there had been cases of officers implicated in impropriety, the police boss added that such incidents had been dealt with “in accordance to Service regulations as well as existing laws”.

A few officers had also been found engaging in crime, he said.

“I want the public to know that police officers are there to uphold the law. Any officer who engages in unlawful acts will be subjected to the law,” the police boss said.

Mr Kimaiyo is in charge of the National Police Service. Mr Samuel Arachi and Ms Grace Kaindi commanding the Administration Police and Kenya Police respectively.

Mr Kimaiyo promised to have errant officers investigated, adding, such errant officers should be treated as individuals.

“Isolated cases should never be used to demonise the whole Service or to give blanket condemnation to the Service,” the police boss said, adding, officers guilty of indiscipline or law-breaking “will face the full force of the law and not as a group.”