• Men and women were crammed together at Kaplelach Primary in Soy constituency, enhancing the risk of infection.
• Cops don't allow bail money via mobile transfer but escort the suspect to a shop to withdraw the cash.
Police are still arresting and isolating wananchi in crammed spaces despite public outrage and government directives on social distancing.
Security officers, especially in the countryside, arrest petty offenders including chang'aa drinkers and dispatch them to quarantine centres where they are held in tight spaces. One is only freed once they part with some money, on average Sh2,000.
A journalist, Chrispine Wekesa, is the latest victim of this practice that is risking the lives of residents as infection near the 1,000 mark.
Wekesa walked into Moi’s Bridge police station on Monday to acquire a travel pass to Nairobi though he had his MCK press card. But officers at the reception desk directed him to the station’s OCS who is authorised to issue such passes.
At his office, the OCS ordered that the journalist be taken to quarantine as “he is a criminal”, without specifying the offence.
“I had my mask on. I only sought the document because I understand the police are arresting those without it at roadblocks, including doctors and journalists even if they have valid job cards,” Wekesa told the Star.
Together with the officers who took him to the OCS’s office, the journalist stepped out thinking that he only had a bad day.
This was not to be as the OCS followed them and assaulted him before ordering that he be taken to the cells where he spent the night on Monday, Wekesa said.
On Tuesday morning, he was taken to Kaplelach Primary School which is being used as quarantine centre in Soy constituency.
At the classrooms, Wekesa recounted, both men and women arrested over flimsy reasons - including being drunk and disorderly - were crammed together in quarantine and were only released upon parting with some money.
"In the classrooms, no social distance is being observed and masks are off for the majority. It is just stories being told as in a normal setting," he said.
To erase any trails of bribes, Wekesa said, the officers do not allow sending money to them through M-Pesa but that they escort those arrested to the nearest outlet to withdraw and hand them the cash.
Over the weekend, the Civil Society Reference Group said the police conduct was putting in jeopardy efforts to flatten the curve of infection.
The police had earlier said the officers were adequately trained.
Edited by R.Wamochie