Nairobi | A Kenyan policeman shot dead six people, including his wife, and wounded two before turning his gun on him, police in the Kenyan capital Nairobi said on Tuesday.
Armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, the policeman first killed his wife with a bullet in the neck, then opened fire on his neighbors indiscriminately in a popular area of Nairobi.
“We have six dead, all killed by the madman, before he kills himself,” said the local police chief, Francis Wahome.
Two other people were hospitalized with minor injuries, he said.
The incident sparked anger from the neighborhood, who demonstrated by blocking streets with burning tires.
The reasons for this madness of the police officer remained undetermined, according to the police chief. “We were told that the couple had problems and quarreled frequently,” he said only.
Cases of police officers using their service weapons to resolve personal, and particularly domestic, disputes are common in Kenya where the police are the institution most affected by corruption, according to Transparency International.
In November 2010, a police officer in a crisis of jealousy had targeted two bars in the center of the country where he had killed ten people before surrendering to his fellow police officers.