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Cop with golden heart in times of global despair

Friday, April 3rd, 2020 00:00 | By
Police officer Amina Mutio Ramadhan (right) helps a woman and her child on March 27, the first day of the nationwide 7pm-5am curfew. Photo/COURTESY

Harriet James @harriet86jim

Everyday, Amina Mutio Ramadhan, wakes up at 4.30am and begins her day by saying her dua (prayer).

She then bids her children bye and sets off to work. As a traffic police officer based at the Embakasi Police Station, her work entails arresting traffic offenders and ensuring free flow of traffic.

Sometimes she checks roadworthiness of vehicles and directs those that are not roadworthy to the station. 

However, on one particular tense night, she was going about her duties trying to enforce the 7pm-5am nationwide curfew announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta in the wake of the cornavirus pandemic, when she came across a woman with her baby alighting from a bus.

It was already 7pm and she knew the woman and her child were in trouble. 

“She was scared because people were running helter-skelter trying to get home and were also running away from the police.

When she saw the chaos, she ran with her child towards the road leaving her luggage behind.

What moved me was the child and I was running towards her to assist her not to arrest her,” Amina says. 

Amina finally caught up with the woman, helped her get her luggage back and together, they called the woman’s husband to come and pick her up. 

Little did Amina know that someone had noted her act of kindness and had taken her photo and shared it on Facebook.

The photo went viral in the midst of cases of police brutality that took place that night.

“The instinct of a mother made me not even think about the social distancing directive. I didn’t do it for the fame.

All I wanted to do was to assist the woman and her baby get home safely,” says the single mother of two. 

Amina admits she helped a lot of women in need get to their homes that first curfew night.

One had just been discharged from hospital and there was no taxi operator willing to take her home because of the directive so she helped them out. 

This was not the only photo of her which has gone viral. In another incident that took place in 2017, Amina is pictured helping an old woman.

The photo was taken by one of her colleagues who saved it in his phone. When the co-worker saw the latest one trending, he posted the 2017 photo to affirm that Amina has been consistently kind-hearted during the 17 years she has been in the police service. 

“I was not aware that there was someone even taking the photo. Ilikuwa tu tendo la utu (it was an act of kindness).

I am a mother and sometimes my job makes me empathise with the people I meet and serve,” she says  

Spark interest

From the time she was a young, Amina had always desired to be a police officer.

She was raised in Nguluni area of Machakos county and went to Nguluni Township Primary School before proceeding to Matungulu Girls Secondary School.

She says she would meet police officers in uniform and that sparked her interest in the job.

Amina joined the service in 2003 when she was 20 years old. She later underwent GSU training at the Embakasi Training School.

 She served as a GSU officer until 2007 before moving to the police service.

The officer attributes her kind heart to her mother, who she watched loving and helping those in need all her life. 

Though her mother knew much later in life of her career as a woman in blue, she is proud of her and is aware of Amina’s desire of one day being the Inspector General of Police. 

“Being an extrovert I love interacting with people, learning what they are going through and seeing ways through which I can assist them.

I’m grateful that being a police officer enables me to do that,” she says. 

Being a social person, she says, one thing that has been tough on her is not shaking hands during the coronavirus period.

In addition, the season has also added a bit of pressure at workplace since she has to get home late after ensuring adherence with the curfew deadline.

When she’s not working, Amina loves spending time with her children. She also visits the sick during her free time.

She hopes that her story will enable Kenyans change their perception of the police and understand that there are some in the force who are kind-hearted and work to protect the public. 

“The public should stop having a negative attitude towards the police...” she concludes. 

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