Monday, January 2, 2012

Police gun down five gangsters



By Cyrus Ombati
Five suspected thugs were shot dead by police in an ambush in Nairobi’s Buruburu area and a rifle recovered from them.
Police said the men — aged between 20 and 30 — were reportedly planning to stage a robbery at the local shopping centre when they were confronted on New Year’s Eve.
An AK-47 rifle with 25 bullets was pulled from a car they were travelling in. Witnesses said the men were mowed down as they tried to escape in the Saturday night incident.
Nairobi Area PPO Anthony Kibuchi said police had been tipped off that the men were armed and planned a series of carjackings in the area.
"Some of them had been linked to some of the crimes that were reported in the city before the New Year," Kibuchi told The Standard.
Police revealed they had been trailing the gunmen for hours before they intercepted them near a petrol station at the shopping centre at about 7pm.
Driver killed
The shooting came hours after a taxi driver was shot dead in a carjacking in Nairobi’s Eastleigh area and robbed of his car.
The victim was driving a saloon car on Friday night along Muratina Road when three gunmen, who appeared to be on the run, confronted him.
Witnesses said the driver resisted the men’s attempts to rob him, prompting one of the gunmen to open fire, killing him on the spot.
The gang escaped with the car. Police, who arrived at the scene minutes later, took the body to the mortuary, but say no arrests have been made so far.
In another incident, a motorist was robbed of Sh25,000 and other valuables in Riruta area.
The victim was in the company of a passenger when gun-toting men struck on Friday night. None of the two were injured in the assault that saw the thugs escape after abandoning the car a few metres away.
Kibuchi said they were hunting the gunmen who are believed to be behind a series of other robberies that were reported in the area.
The police boss said more police officers, including fresh recruits, had been deployed to patrol various areas in an attempt to step up security.
Kibuchi added Nairobi had experienced relatively low rate of crime during the festive season partly because of intensified police patrols and also because most criminals were away on holiday.
"We did not experience such serious crimes because most of these criminals may have also left for the festivities or were busy partying," he said.
Police patrols, he added, would be intensified in the coming weeks when schools open for the first term.

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