Tuesday night was the end of the road for the five suspected thugs who were shot dead and a pistol recovered from them along Thika Road, Nairobi.
According to Witnesses and police, the shooting happened after a gang tried to rob a woman of her bag that contained money at the General Service Unit (GSU) bus stop.
Police who were on patrol spotted the drama and rushed to the woman’s rescue killing the five, a witness said.
The woman operates an Mpesa shop near Drive Inn area and had walked to catch a bus to her residence when the gang on a motorbike trailed her.Head of Special Crimes Prevention Unit Pius Gitari said his team that was patrolling in the area confronted the gang and managed to recover a Browning pistol.
“We will establish whose weapon it is and if it has been used in any crime,” said Gitari.The bodies were moved to the mortuary.
This is the latest such incident to happen in the City in the war on crime. Police say they have increased patrols to address cases of violent crime.Last month, eight men suspected to be burglars were shot dead in a botched robbery on a warehouse in Industrial Area, Nairobi.
The eight are said to have tried to steal gas cylinders from the go down when an alarm was raised alerting police.Witnesses and police said five other suspects were arrested and several stolen cylinders recovered from a lorry that had been parked within the facility.
Seven were killed within the store while the eighth body was discovered outside with bullet injuries. He had apparently tried to escape from the scene in a hail of bullets.Locals and police said some of the suspects were well known “criminals” within Mukuru slums.
The gang had apparently gone to the Softa go down off Enterprise Road and held two guards on duty hostage before they started to load the cylinders onto another lorry.
This was after they had taken hostage another lorry that was ferrying dozens of empty gas cylinders into the store and started to offload it to another waiting vehicle.