{"id":17973,"date":"2021-08-16T07:50:19","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T07:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barazalab.com\/?p=17973"},"modified":"2023-09-04T05:40:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T05:40:30","slug":"writing-police-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tuwele.com\/baraza_update\/writing-police-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Police Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings, friends:<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>I\u2019ve been thinking about the Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and their English composition department. If you\u2019re on Twitter you\u2019ve no doubt come across the florid tales of cases apparently solved by the DCI, written in the style of a breathless tabloid combined with a Kenyan secondary school English composition. In the DCI\u2019s telling, detectives are always \u201cburning the midnight candle\u201d, \u201cyouthful misfits\u201d are rescued from \u201cirate neighbours\u201d, you might even find a miscreant or two.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Back in March, Max Bearak of\u00a0<\/span>The Washington Post<\/span><\/i>\u00a0(and a friend of Baraza Media Lab)\u00a0<\/span>wrote about<\/span><\/a>\u00a0the communications team at DCI behind this flurry of \u201csleuths\u201d busting underground businesses, and suspects \u201ccooling their heels in police custody\u201d. The man behind the keyboard is Jonah Kimani, who once dreamed of becoming a journalist but ended up a police constable, Bearak reports. Kimani is inspired by the oration of Barack Obama and the vocabulary of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and the aim of this frenzied writing is to make the public know that the police \u201care working\u201d. Sigh.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>There are so many layers here that I haven\u2019t even had time to reflect on properly.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>A couple of weeks ago, two brothers – Benson Njiru, 22, and Emmanuel Mutura, 19, were killed after being arrested for being outside after the 10pm curfew. It\u2019s one of many and seemingly relentless police killings or deaths in custody – at least 778 people have been killed or \u201cdisappeared\u201d by police in Kenya since 2007,\u00a0<\/span>according to Missing Voices<\/span><\/a>. This weekend, the brothers\u00a0<\/span>were buried<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at their parents home in Kianjokoma, Embu. Where\u2019s the DCI\u2019s restless writing now?<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>I\u2019m left thinking of the power of language in a time of tragedy such as this, and not only what is written, but isn\u2019t. When flowery language is overdone for the purposes of appreciating police work, and at the same time a brutal killing that leaves a country reeling is met with a strange silence on the part of the \u201cwordsmiths\u201d, the result can only be rage.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, here\u2019s:<\/span><\/p>\n