Why Police Should Leave No Stone Unturned In Unearthing The Mystery Surrounding Waithera’s Shooting?

By: Joseph Mutua Ndonga

Worth Noting:

• The fatal bullet entered through the collarbone and got lodged in her lungs. This showed the shot was fired from an elevated angle.
• This is according to the media report published by one of mainstream newspaper (read DN) that quoted a report released by the police.
• The postmortem was conducted at Kenyatta University Mortuary, where the family of the deceased transferred her body.
• The detectives probing this incident are not leaving anything to chance. We saw them returning to the scene for the second time. They sealed and combed a section of the area.

The shooting of Ms Lilian Waithera, an employee of the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF), raises pertinent questions.

According to her colleague, the shocking incident happened at 5.30 pm, 30 minutes after leaving their work station at Upper Hill.

They were walking along the busy Kaunda Street in Nairobi Central Business District when she suddenly complained of chest pains and asked her to call an ambulance.

Moment later she collapsed on the pavement. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later and the doctors confirmed that she was already died.

The body was first taken to Nairobi Hospital Mortuary and the preliminary reports indicated she had succumbed to heart attack.

This report changed following the shocking revelations that she had been shot dead.

The fatal bullet entered through the collarbone and got lodged in her lungs. This showed the shot was fired from an elevated angle.

This is according to the media report published by one of mainstream newspaper (read DN) that quoted a report released by the police.

The postmortem was conducted at Kenyatta University Mortuary, where the family of the deceased transferred her body.

The detectives probing this incident are not leaving anything to chance. We saw them returning to the scene for the second time. They sealed and combed a section of the area.

The media reported that this was prompted by postmortem report that had changed the course of the investigations.

To them, this was now a serious crime.

A leading newspaper (Read DN) quoted the Nairobi Regional Police Commander Adamson Bungei explaining that the bullet that hit Waithera was fired by someone who was on top of one of the buildings. In other words, it was fired by a sniper. Kaunda street has several high-rise buildings.

People are used to hear the sounds of shots when fired. But in this incident, the media quoted those at scene saying they never heard any sound. This is also corroborated by initial reports that Waithera, who had worked at NHIF for more than 15 years, had succumbed to heart attack.

This suggested that the shooter used a gun mounted with a silencer to fire the bullet.

At this juncture, I’m sure many would agree with me that this incident was shocking and scary. If you can be shot in day light when walking along the street, then this shows no one is safe.

I would expect security agencies to immediately swing into action and contain this new form of crime. This is before it reared ugly head. I know they are capable of doing this.

The new Inspector General of Police Japheth Koome and head of DCI Mohamed Amin have been walking the talk.  This in terms of ensuring the police officers is discharging their constitutional mandates/duties in a professional and transparent manner.

In Kenya, I have never heard case of a person whose life was terminated by bullet fired by a sniper (s).

We used to hear these stories happening in other parts of the world.

A friend of mine told me.

I only hear these incidents of fatal shooting happening in United States of America (USA).

Maybe this is because the civilians there were allowed to own and carry guns. He cited the death of President FK Kennedy who was shot by a sniper.

Joseph Mutua Ndonga is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi