EDITORIAL: How many Kenyans must die before we rein in police?

Kenya is once again forced to confront a grim and familiar reality: police bullets are cutting down citizens with chilling regularity, and accountability remains elusive.

Even before the nation had processed the killing of a medical student in Huruma, news emerged of yet another shooting at a political rally in Kitengela. Each incident follows the same depressing script—outrage, official statements, promises of investigations and then silence.

This cycle persists because impunity has been allowed to take root. Officers who misuse firearms do so knowing that the odds of facing real consequences are slim.

Oversight bodies, meant to be a shield for the public, appear overwhelmed and undermined. Investigators complain of obstruction, non-cooperation and a police culture that closes ranks to protect its own. When the system signals that accountability is optional, restraint disappears.

The result is a dangerous normalisation of violence. Policing, which should be about protection and service, increasingly resembles an occupying force approach, especially in low-income neighbourhoods and charged political spaces.

This erodes public trust and fuels anger, fear and resentment—conditions that ultimately make the country less safe for everyone, including the police themselves.

Kenya must demand firm political will: independent investigations, swift prosecutions and real consequences. Without this, the bloodshed will continue—and the promise of the constitution will remain hollow words on paper.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.” —French writer André Gide died on February 19, 1951