upepo
Elder Lister
Image of the murder suspect as captured on a CCTV. Interestingly, there is no CCTV-quality video in public circulation, forcing the public to rely on the poor quality videos that media houses broadcast.
The murder of Rita Waeni Muendo, which was executed in an airbnb in Kasarani, is likely to expose systemic weaknesses in the country’s crime-fighting outfits. In the past, when the DCI successfully solved similar crimes, there were always doubts whether it was out of competence, luck, or careless/dumb criminals. Investigators may not be as lucky this time around as the suspect made sure to avoid using his phone for calls or transactions. Luckily or unluckily for the investigators, the suspect was captured in a CCTV camera. The images the suspect left behind will either prove the competency of the DCI or expose them as a bunch of amateurs (I could have called them fools but I know they are easily triggered) who have been running on luck all along. That they went hunting for a Nigerian with no proof that he was Nigerian tells a lot. Why would anyone believe the words of a criminal who needs to keep his identity concealed?
So far, a number of glaring weaknesses have become apparent. First, the DCI seems to have no protocols or systems in place to enlist the help of the public in securing information. Why do I say this? For a number of reasons. One, there lacks a well-constituted image of the suspect, which should be in every social media platform by now. Any decent artist could easily reproduce the picture of the criminal with 99% accuracy, and perhaps higher if you motivate them with a glass of cham. By now, posters bearing the image of the suspect should have been plastered in all areas he is suspected to have visited. Somebody must have seen him.
The other weakness is the lack of integration of civilian/private security assets with those of the state. Thousands of businesses and private premises collect terabytes of video footage every second. However, there lacks a central system for collecting and collating this data in a useful format. I bet the suspect has been captured before in the security cameras of countless supermarkets, ATM outlets, and private residences. If all this data had a common repository accessible by state security, it would be much easier to mine it for clues using technology.
Finally, I have a feeling that the family of the deceased girl could be holding onto information that could be useful to the investigation but which might injure the image of the girl. It would be interesting to have all the communications between the girl and suspect made public. In there might lay a clue that could unravel the case. Someone might recognize a phrase or words they have seen or heard before. All in all, with the right effort, it should not be that difficult to trace a left-handed fellow who does not look like 99% of the population.
