- One officer succumbed to gun injuries inflicted by bandits who engaged officers for more than two hours.
- The operation is to flush out and disarm suspected bandits said to be from Turkana.
Police in Isiolo have declared a thorough crackdown to flush out bandits and recover illegal guns used to kill and injure their officers.
County police commander Joseph Kigeni and county commissioner Herman Shambi said ballistic examinations will be conducted on ten guns surrendered by suspected bandits to determine whether they were used during a fierce exchange of fire between officers and criminals.
Kigeni said only two of the 10 surrendered guns were functional and the rest were defective.
Community members surrendered four M16V guns, three old model AK47, one G3 and riffle NO4 and several bullets and magazines at Shambi’s office.
“These illegal guns were not for protecting wildlife but to injure innocent people. Officers have no boundaries. They keep peace, protect lives and property of mwananchi. They don’t have any share of cattle. They were in patrol. Why do they take law into their hands? We want functional guns, this ones can’t operate,” Kigeni said.
Shambi regretted one of the officers succumbed to gun injuries inflicted by the bandits who engaged officers for more than two hours.
“We won’t blink our eyes. There was a sinister motive to finish our officers. We lost an officer and some were injured. They have families too and they not machines to launch bullets. The operation continues until we bring the culprits to book,” he said.
Shambi said some of the officers may no longer undertake duties like before because of injuries.
“Some lost a lot of blood and we do not know whether they will get back to normal duties or do anything for our forces. The gun battle of more than two hours was not only about these ten guns,” Shambi said.
The operation is to flush out and disarm suspected bandits said to be from Turkana who shot the officers at Makinya in Igembe North, Meru county.
General Service Unit officers from Mariara led by corporal Geoffrey Simiyu were patrolling the grazing zones when about 300 rustlers ambushed them.
Bullu based anti-stock theft officers rushed to the scene to provide backup but were attacked and six of them sustained injuries.
Edited by Henry Makori