We don't send recruits to dangerous missions, Kindiki
Interior CS Kithure Kindiki on Wednesday while at parliament said police recruits aren't deployed to dangerous missions such as the fight against terror, it's only reserved for elite police units.
Transcript
00:00 It is true we have lost officers in the line of duty.
00:05 And some of them have been lost
00:10 in the counter-terrorism efforts.
00:15 Others have been lost in the counter-banditry efforts.
00:22 Others have been lost in the fight in urban crime.
00:29 Just this weekend, we lost an officer, I think yesterday,
00:34 who, in the company of two other colleagues,
00:40 had cornered a dangerously armed THAG.
00:45 They managed to neutralize the THAG,
00:48 but the THAG shot three officers,
00:51 and one of them succumbed yesterday.
00:54 Last year, we lost a total of 58 National Police
00:59 service officers countrywide
01:04 in all these dangerous operations.
01:08 As to the question whether we send recruits
01:13 to dangerous missions, the answer is no.
01:16 We have reserved the deployment of the THAG
01:24 to the deployment of officers
01:27 in complicated security operations,
01:31 those that involve the fight against terror,
01:33 bandits, and other dangerous criminals,
01:37 to elite units within the National Police Service.
01:43 So it's not about age of the officer.
01:47 It is the training of the officer
01:50 that determines the deployment,
01:53 because you can have a very experienced officer,
01:56 but has no exposure, has no training
01:58 to handle sophisticated crime.
02:03 So the age of the officer should not be the problem.
02:07 You can have a 27-year-old,
02:10 but they were recruited very early,
02:12 after Kiganjo or APTC,
02:16 and taken to serious counter-terrorism training.
02:22 It could be 24, 25, but that is the best we have
02:27 for that effort.
02:28 So the age should not be a worry.
02:31 What should be a worry for us as a nation
02:33 is the loss of our officers in the hands of criminals.
02:38 I have committed on behalf of government
02:40 that we shall go out of our way
02:43 to minimize casualties on our side.
02:46 So far in Operation Maliza Uhalifu,
02:50 we have not had many casualties.
02:52 We've not had casualties, so to speak.
02:54 The solution is the 25 billion
03:01 police equipment modernization program,
03:05 which has already been completed,
03:08 and the deliveries have started trickling in.
03:12 And I want to assure the country,
03:16 in the coming weeks and months,
03:19 we will turn around the story around terror,
03:22 and it will be impossible,
03:26 it will be difficult, if not impossible,
03:31 for criminals to be able to fell down our officers.
03:36 We'll make it extremely difficult,
03:38 but as happens in war,
03:42 casualties are part of the issue,
03:45 but we'll minimize them going forward.
03:48 Better equipment, which includes air equipment,
03:53 or air assets, personal protection equipment,
03:57 and also the use, the increasing use of unarmed vehicles,
04:02 aerial vehicles, UAVs, commonly known as drones,
04:07 to minimize physical contact.
04:09 Going forward, we will turn around the story,
04:14 and we'll have less officers being felled
04:19 by the fire of terrorists and dangerous criminals.
04:23 (silence)
04:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]