A police officer shot and injured two people during a curfew operation in Kabarnet town on Tuesday night.
The officer identified as Bazilian Opicho was arrested and locked up awaiting arraignment, Baringo Central police commander Francis Gachoki said.
“The officer is out of order. What he did is totally against our police service regulations and he must be charged. No one is above the law,” Gachoki said.
He said investigations were ongoing to establish the reason of the shooting.
The injured were boda boda rider Amos Komen, 24, and Edwin Kibet, 32, a secondhand clothes seller in Kabarnet town.
“I was off duty from town heading home around 7.30pm when I met the officer on patrol accompanied by colleagues. He shot me on the spot,” Komen said.
He was shot in the elbow while Kibet was shot in the hand. His three fingers were removed.
The shooting victims were admitted to Kabarnet County Referral Hospital.
Gachoki said Opicho was recently transferred to the station from Nakuru.
“We have had peaceful police operations in Baringo since the dusk-to-dawn curfew kicked off last month. This one is an isolated incident,” the police boss said.
The incident occurred near Buruburu estate on the Kabarnet Town-Cereals road.
“Already we have notified our bosses in Nairobi and Nakuru and they are all aware of the incident,” the county police boss told journalists in his office Wednesday.
Doctors said they dressed the wounds and told the victims to go home and report back the next day.
Gachoki said they had some difficulty chasing boda boda operators out of Kabarnet town during curfew hours “but all the other residents have been complying with the stipulated rules.”
He urged residents to obey the Covid-19 regulations of being indoors between 7pm and 5am to avoid being in the wrong side of the law.
“The law clearly stipulates that anybody found loitering at night will be arrested and taken for 14 days quarantine at own cost,” he said.
Edited by Henry Makori