A Nairobi based lawyer, Jeremiah Kinyua Meeme, was killed after a highspeed car chase on Tuesday evening in Juja, Kiambu County.
The force of violence exercised by the police who shot at the vehicle 50 times, left eyewitnesses in shock.
Whereas authorities stated that the officers gunned down five men, The Standard could only identify three.
Jeremiah had been shot seven times while his friend Ian Collins Ojuok had 17 bullets in his body and Amos Ngugi, a client had one bullet lodged in his torso.
The police report stated "Today 12/3/2019 1930 hours, police officers received information of an intended robbery at Lexo Petrol Station. The six robbers on board a Tuareg Volkswagen alighted brandishing an AK 47.
"Police challenged them but they defied. They were overpowered and five of them were fatally shot. One armed with an AK 47 escaped."
An eyewitness, however, gave a different version of events, claiming that he did not see the weapon the police had accused the men of brandishing.
He recounted how three police vehicles were pursuing the car amid thunderous gunfire.
"The gunshots were emanating from the railway about a kilometre away. When the vehicles reached the petrol station, the one in front (Volkswagen) hit a lorry which had been parked by the road," Kagoni narrated.
One man dashed out of the car and was chased by police officers before they returned to the car that had hit the lorry.
The eyewitness stated that after sensing some movement in the car, the officers opened another round of thunderous gunfire and after a short while, everything went dead silent.
The Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) has launched independent investigations into the incident, with a view of unravelling the circumstances that led to the fatal shootings.
The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) has condemned the murder, stating "The Law Society of Kenya is shocked and gravely saddened by the news of the heinous and brutal murder in cold blood of one of its members, the late Jeremiah Meeme Kinyua.”
