The National Police Commission has kicked off a countrywide mental assessment of police officers, in an effort to respond to the alarming cases of murders within the police service.

The commission has set up a medical board that is carrying out assessments on all officers.

“The commission has established a special medical board to conduct the degree of mental illnesses affecting members of the National Police Service. “This will inform cases that need a referral for specialized treatment and any other interventions,” NPSC chairman Eliud Kinuthia said while addressing the National Assembly’s Committee on Administration and National Security on Thursday.

“The commission has established a special medical board to conduct the degree of mental illnesses affecting members of the National Police Service.

The mental assessment exercise of police officers in the country is expected to carry on until November.

The medical board has so far assessed officers in Nairobi and will be moving to Nakuru and Eldoret next week and thereafter to the Nyanza and Western regions.

“The board is meeting each and every officer and assessing them individually. They will come up with statistics because this is an area which requires data,” Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai said.

Rising Cases of Murder Among Police Officers

There have been rising cases of murders within the police service where officers are turning guns on themselves, their spouses, or colleagues.

In the most recent incidents, early this week a police officer in Njoro burst into a hospital and shot dead his lover before turning the gun to himself. The officer had reportedly physically assaulted the woman, who then went to seek medical attention in the facility before the enraged officer burst into the hospital and shot her dead and later turned the gun on himself.

On Wednesday, a prison warder was arrested right on time as he planned on shooting his girlfriend, a fourth-year student at Mt. Kenya University.

“Detectives have arrested prison warder Edwin Omuse, who disappeared from duty yesterday armed with a G3 rifle, on a mission to kill his girlfriend. An enraged Omuse stormed out of Kangeta GK Prison in Meru, carrying the carefully concealed riffle in a sack,” DCI said in a tweet.

The recent incidents come in the backdrop of the bizarre saga surrounding the late police officer Caroline Kagogo, who reportedly had been put on the wanted list after killing two men in separate incidents.

She would later be found dead in a bathroom at her parent’s house, in a case that was ruled to be suicide.