Bullet in broad daylight: How cameras, courage and OSINT are unmasking Kenya’s police brutality

Hours before dusk fell on Nairobi on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, a now-familiar scene unfolded, only this time, the cameras were already rolling.

A Kenyan police officer shot a face mask vendor at point-blank range in the head, a shocking incident that was captured live on TikTok and by dozens of smartphones.

The victim, reportedly a hawker selling masks to demonstrators outside Imenti House on Moi Avenue, was unarmed and standing by a shuttered stall.

Moments before the gunshot, two officers were seen confronting him.

Then, the trigger was pulled.

"He's shot him in the head!" one bystander cried out in horror.

The officers, unbothered, walked away. But the internet did not.

Broadcast on social media

This brutal act, broadcast across social media, comes just days before the June 25th anniversary of the 2024 Finance Bill protests—an uprising that forced President William Ruto into a rare political retreat.

The tax hikes were shelved. The streets of Kenya had spoken.

Many had viewed that moment as a turning point for democracy.

This week, however, a single bullet may have undone much of the moral authority the state has tried to regain.

Human rights scrutiny

The Kenyan government, a sitting member of the UN Human Rights Council, now finds itself under fresh scrutiny.

Again. This time, not for words but for the unfiltered violence of state power in action.

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• Headlines
• National
• UN Human Rights Council
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• protests
• finance bill protests
• BBC Africa Eye
• OSINT
• Open Source Intelligence.
• masked police officers
• Imenti House
• Moi Avenue
• Bullet in broad daylight: How cameras
• courage and OSINT are unmasking Kenya’s police brutality

The officer behind the gun wore a mask when he pulled the trigger.

But here's the twist: earlier footage showed him unmasked.

And in a digital age where every frame is a clue, that's all it takes.

Enter OSINT, or Open Source Intelligence.

Once the realm of intelligence services and specialised journalists, it's now a civic weapon.

Armed with smartphones, public databases, and determination, ordinary citizens and investigators are now identifying state actors who once operated with impunity.

The gunman's image is already circulating.

Faces are being matched. The crowd may disperse, but the internet will always remember.

OSINT isn't new in Kenya.

2024 Finance Bill protests

In April this year, BBC Africa Eye used the tool to reconstruct the fatal shootings during the Finance Bill protests—scrutinising over 5,0002 videos and images to tell a story the state wouldn't.

Nor was it absent from the skies.

Online aircraft trackers

Exactly one year ago today, Kenya’s “hustler-in-chief,” President William Ruto, quietly departed Nairobi for the G7 summit in Italy.

He did not fly on the national carrier but used a private jet chartered from India, disguised under an "NA" flight ID with no visible registration—a common aviation tactic used to hide the identity of VIPs and sensitive cargo.

With the help of online aircraft trackers and eagle-eyed plane spotters like Johnny Gemini, it took just hours for a handful of journalists from this outlet to reconstruct the route: a refuelling stop in Egypt, a discreet entry into Europe, and eventually, a commercial return from Paris after the story broke.

The digital veil had been lifted.

Open-source investigators

In a world increasingly hostile to transparency, open-source investigators are lighting candles in the dark.

But their work is not just technical—it is emotional, civic, and moral.

The camera is now mightier than the rifle, not in real time, but in hindsight.

As Fazla Rabbi once wrote in Unmasking the Invisible, OSINT only requires three tools: a laptop, a meticulous mind, and the audacity to believe that the chaos of the internet can reveal truth.

And now, that truth has a target: a masked man with a gun.