We May Curse The Police Officers But How Comes We So Quickly Believed DJ MO’s Part Of His Arrest Story?

Yesterday saw another celebrity rub shoulders with the authorities in Naivasha, after what the celebrity termed as refusing to give a bribe to the police officers for tinting the windows of his car.

Less than two months ago, Dance Hall singer Redsan spent a night in Kilimani Police station after he was suspected to be a terrorist. Everybody, include myself, blasted the officers and the government in general without necessarily establishing the reason behind the arrest.

This was because we believed in Redsan’s story to an extent that we could not listen to the government side of the story. That is how Kenyans are anyway.

After Redsan’s incident, Avril was also summoned to a police station, though not because she had committed a crime but to record a statement after her imposter was nabbed.

And now the attention has shifted to DJ MO.

Yesterday, photos of an altercation between the DJ and police officers went viral on social media. The captions that followed them said that DJ MO was being harassed after he refused to give the police what they had asked for: a bribe.

Everybody was raged at the fact that the DJ was being pulled up and down by police officers for refusing to part with kitu kidogo. That is the story the DJ gave. His wife, singer Size 8 watched and was busy taking photos from a distance. That is the story they gave.

We believed it as usual. We condemned the officers as usual. We ranted as usual. We called names as usual.

That is where my worry arises from. I personally hate police officers harassing suspects whenever they apprehend them. That is weird to say the least. The photos I saw exactly revealed that there was an altercation between DJ MO and the karaus. That was so uncalled for. So bad. Condemnable. Appalling.

The kerfuffle that ensued is what DJ MO says his refusal to bribe the officers for tinting his car. Well, how true that is I can’t tell for now but what has appalled me is this trend Kenyans are used to. They easily and quickly believe whatever a celebrity says, jump to conclusions and make severe judgements.

The officers in Naivasha have been bashed, abused and tainted in equal measure for what we believe is asking for a bribe from the renowned DJ. Their photos are going viral all over. They are being criminalised, thanks to DJ MO’s story.

Well, that is the sad part of the story. How we came to the conclusion that the officers asked for a bribe from the DJ just because he made us believe so is pathetic.

Don’t you think it is time we waited for both sides of the story before we jumped into dangerous conclusions? Don’t you think we need to listen to both parties before we criminalise one part and glorify the other?

That is the bitter truth we do not want to hear.