Two police officers attached to Mutundwe Police Station have been apprehended to help with investigations into the murder and robbery that claimed two policemen and a civilian in Kalerwe Saturday night.
The arrested are Assistant Superintended of Police (ASP) Samuel Kazibwe the Officer-in-charge (O.C) of Mutundwe police station and Sgt. Patrick Emojong who were responsible for deploying the two deceased officers. This is according to AIGP Asan Kasingye, the Police spokesperson.
On Saturday at 9pm, 3 people including a civilian driver were killed after suspected robbers hijacked Toyota Noah transporting money that had been collected from Denovo Bakery outlets in the city.
Two police officers SPC Hussein Mubiru and SPC Moses Karungi were shot dead and their guns stolen.
“We have so far arrested two of our officers from Mutundwe police station and they will tell us how they deployed the deceased officers,” Kasingye told the press on Monday.
Police suspects that the same officers have always been deployed to escort the money which creates loopholes in the safety of the money.
“As police, we are reviewing our own. One of the cashiers of Denovo told us that they have often used the same police officers for to provide escort services. Anything can happen in such a situation,” AIGP Kasingye said.
“Our Professional Standards Unit (PSU) is investigating the conduct of Senior officers at Mutundwe police station to ascertain how this has been done. We shall look into previous moneys that have been transported to ensure if there were delivered intact,” he added.
Investigations will also look into officers that might have been deployed in the vicinity but were hesitant to respond to shootings.
According to Kasingye, there are stipulated regulations in the Police Act that guide police’s escort services and if police officers are found to have breached any of these, they will be dealt with.
Asked whether the police is indeed mandated to provide security to private entities like Denovo to transport money, Kasingye affirmed to this, making reference to Article 212 of the constitution which gives police the duty to protect the lives of people and their property.
But in a somewhat contradictory statement, the spokesperson later noted; “Uganda is not short of bullion services. Private services should get private guards because there’s a law on that. PSU will find out why our officers didn’t advise Denovo to use these services.”
In another update on Saturday’s incident, Police said that three people that were injured in the Kalerwe shootout have been discharged from Mulago hospital. However, two others; Nakatude Nawal and Hakiza Evarist (a bystander) are still nursing bullet wounds.
Caution
Meanwhile, AIGP Asan Kasingye has issued a strong caution to individuals and private companies such as Forex bureaus, shopping centres, banks and mobile money agents that move money in bulk to ensure they avoid doing it in a predictable pattern.
“The robbers trailed the car transporting money until the last collection point of the 9 outlets. This means Management of Denovo have been doing this regularly,” he said.
“I want to warn the public about being predictable. If you collect money from known points at specific time using specific vehicles, you are exposing yourself to criminals,” Kasingye