NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 12- Three police officers have committed suicide within a period of 48 hours, raising concerns over the effectiveness of measures put in place by both the National Police Service and National Police Service Commission, to curb such incidents.
Previous reports have linked such incidents to mental-related issues, that have accumulated within the service, due to among other things poor working conditions.
A recent report by the National Crime Research Centre, that saw more than 900 hundred senior and junior police officers interviewed, exposed a myriad of issues affecting them.
They included stress work, poor leadership and punitive placements, inadequate pay and benefits, and poor housing.
Two cases happened in Mombasa on Tuesday, while the third one occurred in Juja, Kiambu County.
In Mombasa, police constable David Koech was on Tuesday found lying in a pool of his own blood. He had a gunshot wound on the back of his head.
Koech is said to have sneaked back to the police post he was based in after official duties, identified as Concordia in Kisauni Sub-County, where he allegedly took a rifle and shot himself.
The circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear.
“Nobody heard a gunshot,” an incident report seen by Shahidi News reads.
His body was moved to the Coast General Mortuary, where it is awaiting a postmortem examination.
Police said they recovered a spent cartridge from the scene and 29 rounds of ammunition recovered from the magazine.
The rifle AK 47 S/NO.KP 5501874 was also recovered at the scene. The rifle was found beside his body.
Did he commit suicide or what exactly happened?
The second incident occurred in Nyali Sub-County, where another police constable is said to have committed suicide by shooting himself.
The officer, identified as Dennis Kamau Ndungu is said to have shot himself using a Glock pistol serial number GBZ 767.
The pistol was recovered having 12 rounds of ammunition.
Police said three spent cartridges and a shattered Samsung mobile phone were recovered at the scene.
His body was moved to Pandya Hospital Mortuary, awaiting an autopsy. Like Koech, police constable Kamau had a bullet wound on his head.
Both incidents happened on Tuesday.
Kamau’s body was found in a hotel room by his boss, a senior police officer from the General Service Unit
He was attached to the State House in Nairobi.
On Monday, another officer who was attached to Deputy President William Ruto’s security team was found dead at his home in Juja, Kiambu County.
The incident happened along Kenyatta Road.
He had a bullet wound on his head when his colleagues found his body.
Police recovered a Jericho pistol with 13 rounds of ammunition, suspected to have been used to commit suicide.
A second magazine with 15 rounds of 9 mm alongside a sub-machine gun, SMG serial number KP 458060012 with two magazines loaded with 30 rounds of ammunition were also recovered in his house.
He is said to have been living alone after separating from his wife two years ago.
The father of two was described by his colleagues as a calm individual, “who was full of life.”
His colleagues told Shahidi News that he even had plans of traveling to his home in Nyeri over the Easter holidays.
Was his death a result of suicide or something else?
All three cases are being investigated by detectives in Mombasa and Kiambu County.
Previous incidents have triggered a myriad of interventions that even saw a mental wellness programme developed by NPSC, but how effective is it?
Have the underlying issues been addressed?
On April 7, 2021, Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr. Fred Matiangi’s bodyguard shot his wife dead, before turning the gun to himself. They both died instantly.
His wife was a traffic police officer based at the Kilimani police station.
After the incident, all police officers attached to senior government officials underwent a mental wellness assessment at the Chiromo hospital.
The mental hospital has been training senior police officers on mental wellness and ways to detect a police officer who is in distress.
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