Prison warder threatened to kill colleagues during shooting incident

There was a security scare at the Narok GK Prison after a police officer "went berserk" and started shooting randomly, leading to a hostage crisis.

The lunchtime shooting brought to a standstill operations at the corrective centre located two kilometers from Narok town.

He threatened to shoot dead his seniors, protesting disciplinary cases brought against him.

The siege began at 1pm, when gunshots rent the air, turning the facility into a no-go area..

Prison officers scampered for safety, locking themselves in any available room as the attacker moved from corner to corner baying for his colleagues' blood.

Alfred Musila, the officer in charge of the Narok GK Prison, said the warder, a constable identified as Osborn Omondi, was in charge of the prison’s armoury and store.

He armed himself with a G3 riffle and held all within the facility hostage as he shot more than four rounds of ammunition in the air, forcing his colleagues to dash for safety.

“Since it was lunch time the prisoners were in their cells, and the other officers were either in their houses for lunch and a few of them at their workstations within the prison, it is then that we heard the gunshots,” said Mr Musila.

He said he called for reinforcements from Narok County Police Commander Jillo Galgalo, who brought in police officers.

Mr Musila told the Nation officers succeeded in containing the officer and disarming him.

He said the situation then got out of hand when other prison warders ganged up with the shooter, shielded him from arrest and helped him escape on a boda boda.

“The rivalry of the two forces played out here as the warders stopped the arrest of their counterpart [and] that forced us to call a parade later to know why they did that yet they were the ones under siege,” explained Mr Musila.

The officer, who appeared drunk, complained about being frustrated by one of his seniors who he claimed had deprived him of his allowances for guarding a local construction site.

Contacted for comment, Mr Galgalo said the prison warders turned against the AP officers and shielded their colleague from arrest and helped him to escape.

“There was nothing we could do. The warders turned against us and to avoid a confrontation and a possible shootout we had to give in,” he said.

He, however, said a search for the prison officer had been launched.

A similar incident happened in April in the same area when plainclothes police officers disarmed an AP officer who had caused a scare on the outskirts of Narok town after he went berserk and fired 22 bullets in the air.