Genesis of violent crime that is ravaging Nairobi

Only last week, the media reported the killing, in Dandora, of a deaf young man.

The report indicated that the killing was a mistake since the policeman, unaware that the young man was deaf, shot when the victim failed to respond to some kind of warning from the policeman.

The same report indicated that the killing was followed by outrage from local residents, who pelted the police with stones as they tried to prevent them from taking away the body of the victim.

Ever since the earlier killing of two people in Eastleigh, the one that was captured on video, which was followed by divided public opinion regarding what the police had done, the human rights community has entered into a new period of reflection on how to address the runaway problem of killings by the police of suspected criminals.

NEW ARRESTS

The reflection has been interrupted by the need to respond to new arrests, like one that occurred in Kayole recently, in which a police officer reportedly mistakenly discharged his firearm, badly injuring the suspect, whom the police then continued holding in a cell rather than taking him to hospital.

Since the incident in Eastleigh, other killings have been reported. It is clear that the wide publicity that the Eastleigh killings attracted will not deter future killings, and that the execution of suspects is now a standard response to crime.

Consultations with human rights defenders who live in the affected areas have helped to construct a picture about what may be happening in these neighbourhoods.

It is undeniable that gun crime has significantly increased in these areas and that such crime is increasingly becoming organised, rather than merely opportunistic.

Ravaged by crime, local residents implicitly support police action, including killings, believing that this will result in increased security.

HIRE GUNS

There is another layer of information about how this crime is organised. Sources on the ground allege that local criminals work with members of the police service and that, as part of this, the police frequently hire out their firearms and uniforms to these thugs.

While, ordinarily, there is no pressure on the part of the police to disturb this mutually-beneficial arrangement, things can change quickly when the police are required to show some results in the fight against crime. It is on such occasions that police round up and kill the very criminals with whom they ordinarily co-operate.

Business and politics are also actors in these arrangements. Concerned about the need to protect their businesses from crime, the sources indicate that business people have organised vigilantes and that, in order to afford the vigilantes a level of official recognition, these are then introduced to the police.

The same happens with politicians, who also establish and maintain local vigilantes that also need to have a level of official recognition.

This introduction morphs into the kind of relationships in which the vigilantes end up as criminals working directly with the police.

RAPID UBARNISATION

There are also macro factors that help to explain these local events, like Kenya’s rapid urbanisation.

There are predictions that by 2025, Nairobi’s population will double from the current three million people.

Already, 60 per cent of the city’s population lives in slums with little or no access to the most basic services like housing, water and food.

Rapid urbanisation constitutes a transfer of poverty, traditionally a rural phenomenon, into the cities where an underclass of deprived citizens lives side by side with relatively well-to-do neighbours.

Another macro factor is the increasingly easy access to firearms, which helps to drive violent crime in the cities.

STREET CRIME

The use of knives in street crime became a thing of the past as soon as criminals found access to firearms.

The high rates of crime witnessed in Nairobi are a fulfilment of predictions that rapid urbanisation will be the defining crisis of Kenya’s future.

In a sense, therefore, and although not recognised as such, these killings are a class war. The middle class largely supports the actions of the police and this is why the killings that were captured on video elicited such little outrage.

As happened in Dandora last week, where the police reportedly killed an innocent deaf young man, and with Willie Kimani, the lawyer that the police killed last year, together with his client and a taxi driver that was ferrying them, police will often kill innocent people.

However, the killing of innocent people is only made possible when society gives the police the power to decide on their own whom to kill and whom to spare.

REFUSED TO DROP CHARGES

In the Willie Kimani case, the claim was that the intended target was Josephat Mwenda and the reason for targeting him was because he had stubbornly refused to drop charges he had brought against a police officer.

When society allows police to kill, they can use this power to kill people that are pursuing legitimate complaints against the police, or to include a category of people whose killing society does not necessarily approve of. Ultimately, we cannot run a society where a small group of people subjectively decide that it is fine to summarily execute a section of society.

Whereas killing is not a solution, it is also clear that the law enforcement process has failed and that there are doubts about the ability of the system to bring dangerous criminals to justice.

On the other hand, since police have the choice to take the law into their hands, this undermines the incentive to invest in legitimate law enforcement capacities.

EMBRACE VIGILANTISM

An inclusive discussion is required in order to address the manifest frailties of the justice system.

The decision by business to embrace vigilantism is a response to the frailties of the law enforcement system and would need to be addressed as such.

On the other hand, the use of vigilantism in politics cannot be explained other than as a sign of the sickness that continues to afflict Kenyan politics.

The macro issues will also need to be addressed in appropriate ways. The start would have to be an acknowledgement that these are linked to the violence crime that is ravaging the city.

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