When Dickson Gitonga, a police officer based at Nairobi’s Central Police Station, travelled to his rural home to meet his colleagues in Tharaka Nithi County on Saturday morning, he had no idea what danger awaited him there.
Ms Ann Loko, his wife, told Nation.Africa that Gitonga went straight to the meeting because it was late, but he called her and promised to go home immediately after the meeting.
He called again to tell his wife that the meeting was over and that he was going to buy meat for dinner.
“My husband called me around 6pm and asked me to cook ugali because he was going to buy meat,” Loko said.
Gitonga was reportedly beaten up by three military men he knew well at a bar near Kirubia Stadium in Chuka sub-county at around 8:30pm. He died while receiving treatment at Chuka County Referral Hospital.
The victim had had a good time with the other members of the Tharaka Nithi County National Police Service Officers Welfare at a conference hall at Hola Filing Station until 6pm, when the meeting ended.
Gitonga then walked with two other officers, one of them his cousin, to Kitharani Junction Pub, opposite the filing station on the Meru-Nairobi highway, a few minutes before 8pm.
Mrs Ann Loko, the wife of a police officer Dickson Gitonga who was reportedly beaten and later died at Chuka County Referral Hospital on May 20, 2023.
According to the report, the three alleged perpetrators —a Kenya Defence Forces soldier stationed at Gilgil, a corporal stationed at Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki, and a former soldier who is said to have been in Afghanistan, drove into the bar compound and one of them got out and went into the bar.
He went straight to where Gitonga was sitting with his two colleagues and asked him to buy him a beer. After a brief discussion, the two left the bar.
As the two were leaving the bar, the soldier allegedly pushed Gitonga to the ground and together with the other two who were standing near the vehicle, attacked him, severely injuring him on the chest and neck.
Gitonga’s friends rushed out and found him lying on the ground in a bad condition as the three entered their vehicle.
The driver reversed the vehicle and hit one of Gitonga’s friends on the leg, also injuring him. The two men were rushed to hospital.
The matter was reported to Chuka Police Station at exactly 9:58pm by David Gitare, Gitonga’s brother who is a retired soldier.
Chuka Sub County Police Commander Paul Kuria said investigations were launched and one of the suspects was arrested. Police are still pursuing his two accomplices.
Katharina Junction Pub in Kirubia area in the outskirts of Chuka town where a police officer, Dickson Gitonga was reportedly beaten and later died at Chuka County Referral Hospital on May 20, 2023.
“We have arrested one of the accused and we are looking for the other two,” Mr Kuria said.
Ms Karimi Muchura, Gitonga’s sister, said: “Our brother had not taken any beer because he had spent the day at the meeting. The three of them must have planned to kill him.”
She said hospital officials told them Gitonga had serious injuries to the chest and they had called Flying Doctors to take him to a hospital with an intensive care unit, but he died before they could arrive.
Gitonga, whose body was taken to the Lampedusa mortuary, is survived by his wife and three children BY DAILY NATION