Police performance at Westgate was poor

One of the terrorists seen on CCTV during the Westgate Mall siege. Photo/FILE

What you need to know:

  • Westgate demonstrated that the force was let down not just by outdated procedures, poor training and lack of equipment, but also by incompetent command and poor civilian oversight at the Office of the President.
  • According to the New York Police Department’s assessment of the mall attack, the terror mission was intended to be a high-profile job attracting maximum  publicity, and the attackers intended to move in quickly, kill as many people as possible, then escape.
  • The GSU-RC has the numbers, more than 1,000, to effectively protect not just all of the high risk areas in Nairobi but all other urban areas. But they have to be intelligently deployed, better commanded and given the equipment to move quickly.

A sober evaluation of the performance of the police at Westgate can only result in despair.

Whereas there were heart-warming cases of personal heroism and bravery under fire by officers, the Kenya Police Service as an organised and effective law enforcement agency was not very useful.

Westgate demonstrated that the force was let down not just by outdated procedures, poor training and lack of equipment, but also by incompetent command and poor civilian oversight at the Office of the President.

The Kenya Police SWAT team, comprising officers from the General Service Recce Company, is one of the best police tactical units in Africa. But a lot of its members have been palmed out as private goons for VIPs. The GSU-RC arrived at Westgate at 2:15pm, two hours and 45 minutes after the attack started.

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According to the New York Police Department’s assessment of the mall attack, the terror mission was intended to be a high-profile job attracting maximum  publicity, and the attackers intended to move in quickly, kill as many people as possible, then escape. Nearly all of the victims were killed in the first hour, that is around 1.15pm.

The SWAT has no helicopter and had to navigate the traffic jam to get to Westgate. It is also highly likely that there was no stand-by team and that the 10 who responded were strung hurriedly together. Still, the GSU-RC represented the best way of ending the mall siege quickly, giving those inside the best chance of survival, of arresting or killing the attackers and preserving property.

The GSU-RC has the numbers, more than 1,000, to effectively protect not just all of the high risk areas in Nairobi but all other urban areas. But they have to be intelligently deployed, better commanded and given the equipment to move quickly.

It is not clear what exactly the other units of the police force – the detectives of the DCI, the criminal intelligence units and the Anti-Terror Police Unit – do in terms of collecting and acting on information. Like other crimes, the rates of terror detection, prosecution and conviction are minimal.

Terrorists routinely drive from the border into cities, passing many police road blocks.

Improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs, are sometimes made in Somalia and driven into the country, such as the one discovered in Mombasa.

High profile Al-Shabaab figures are also able to move from central Somalia overland into Nairobi.