NAIROBI — Late on the night of June 27, 2018, a crowd gathered in a slum in Kenya's capital, incensed at two young men who, after a night of drinking, had stumbled against a fruit vendor's stall, knocking a few bananas to the ground before running home.
Two policemen came to Peter Njogu’s door with handcuffs. But instead of taking his son, Daniel, 20, and his friend Amos Ng’ang’a, 17, to the police station, they cuffed them and dragged them onto the unlit road and into the mob. In front of Destiny hair salon, the officers stepped back and let other neighborhood youths smash their heads with rocks, killing them as Njogu watched, helpless.
No one filmed the moment, and it slipped into Kenya’s ever-growing annals of death in police custody. Njogu avoids that road in his neighborhood of Kayole these days, just as he avoids the two police officers, whom he still sees patrolling.
Death at the hands of police or in their custody happens at a far greater rate in Kenya than in any other African country,  ( more)