Slain officer kept his work area neat

Constable Kennedy Otieno and his wife Ms Beatrice Otieno at their house within the Mandera Police station staff quarters early this year. PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • These are some of the things that Kennedy Otieno, the police constable brutally murdered together with his expectant wife and 26 other passengers on Saturday, is fondly remembered for at the station. He had served at the station for two years.
  • When he applied for his annual leave to take his wife home, he was told that he could not be released since a similar request by an officer he worked with in the crime office had been approved.

At the Mandera Police Station staff quarters are round shallow holes that officers dash to in case of an attack.

One, about 30 metres from the gate, is among the cleanest and the most well maintained.

In the station’s crime office, manila papers with information on investigations and a compilation of police case files are neatly pinned on the walls.

These are some of the things that Kennedy Otieno, the police constable brutally murdered together with his expectant wife and 26 other passengers on Saturday, is fondly remembered for at the station. He had served at the station for two years.

When he applied for his annual leave to take his wife home, he was told that he could not be released since a similar request by an officer he worked with in the crime office had been approved.

However, last week, an opportunity arose. Being the Kenya Police Sacco Mandera County representative, he was called for a sacco meeting in Nairobi.

He asked his wife, Beatrice Otieno, to accompany him to Nairobi before she could proceed to their home in Bondo, Siaya County.

The woman was to join him in Mandera next year after giving birth to their first born child.

At the office, Constable Otieno handed over his case files and sacco loan application forms to a colleague as he prepared to leave the following morning.

Ms Violet Maranga, a teacher at Mandera Academy, spent the night at the police quarters so that she could leave with them at 3am for the bus station.

And in the morning, the policeman, his wife and the teacher left for Makka Bus Station. An hour later, they were all shot dead.

Constable Otieno graduated from the police college in 2012.