Bullets, broken dreams: Final moments of men killed during fuel protests in Thika, Ruiru

On Monday, May 25, 2026, a week after the fuel hike protest, three bodies lay on postmortem tables.

Family members, pathologists, IPOA officers, DCI officers, and representatives from IMLU looked on at a grim scene exposing what remained of dreams interrupted by bullets.

For families and friends, the struggle was not just to identify the bodies, but to make sense of deaths that arrived too suddenly.

In death, 18-year-old Maximillan Muiruri, 22-year-old Peter Githinji, and 29-year-old shoe vendor Kelvin Kang’ethe had become statistics of yet another protest season.

They were sons, brothers, dreamers, and providers whose laughter once filled homes now swallowed by grief.

Killed during last Monday’s protests over soaring fuel prices in Thika and Ruiru, the three have joined a growing and troubling list of young lives lost to police bullets in the industrious town since the June 2024 anti-Finance Bill demonstrations, the June 2025 commemorations, and subsequent unrest.

As pathologists conducted postmortems, a chilling picture emerged: bullets tearing through flesh, shattering bones, and rupturing vital organs, causing injuries too severe to survive.

For families, however, the medical explanations could not answer the deeper question: why their sons never made it back home.

Maximill Muiruri: The DJ Dream That Ended in Casualty

Maximill Muiruri had completed his KCSE examinations last year and joined a private college in Kenol, Murang’a County, to pursue his dream of becoming a DJ.

“He loved music so much,” his cousin Anderson said quietly, struggling to steady his voice. “We were very close. Maximill was outgoing but calm. He had big dreams. He wanted to become a great DJ and make something out of himself.”

What happened on Monday still feels unreal to those who knew him.

Boniface Ngaruiya, a close friend and neighbour, remembers the frantic call that shattered the day.

Ngaruiya explained how his friends called, informing him that Muiruri had been shot and needed help. He rushed to the scene near Ushop, about a kilometre from Thika Town, where he found Muiruri groaning in pain.

The bullet had hit the upper part of his stomach. They rushed him to a nearby private hospital, but they said his condition was too critical and were referred to Thika Level Five Hospital.”

Ngaruiya says the young man fought for his life throughout the journey.

“He was still talking and crying in pain,” he said. “You could tell he wanted to live. But at the casualty, doctors could not save him.”

His father, Samuel Mwangi, remembers receiving the call no parent ever wishes to receive.

“I was told my son had been shot and taken to the hospital. I rushed there hoping I would find him alive, but when I arrived, I found my son lying lifeless.”

As they waited for the pathologist to arrive, Mwangi struggled to understand why his son died. The family alleges the officer who pulled the trigger is well known and was intoxicated.

“Why shoot young people who were not even protesting?” he asked bitterly. “He was just in the estate, going about his business. Why use live bullets? You cannot convince me this was normal policing,” Mwangi questioned. “How do you aim at young people like that?”

After the autopsy, the examination showed that a bullet entered Maximillan Muiruri’s body through the left side of his abdomen and lodged on the right side of his body and was safely removed during the post-mortem.

“The bullet is in safe custody of the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA), who were present alongside representatives from the Independent Medical Legal Unit (IMLU),” the father said.

He noted that the recovered bullet will be subjected to ballistic analysis to help establish who was responsible for his son’s death.

Unknown to Maximillan’s family at the time, the same bullet that struck him had also hit another young man, Kelvin Kang’ethe.

Kelvin Kang’ethe: The Sneaker Seller Who Never Came Home

At Landless Estate, Monday morning had begun ordinarily for Kelvin Kang’ethe and his father, John Mwangi.

Despite reports of unrest in Thika, they left home intending to go to work.

According to his father, John Mwangi, they hoped things would calm down, but when they reached near town and saw the situation worsening, they decided to return home. Kelvin, however, chose to continue to town on foot.

That was the last time his father saw him alive.

Known widely at Mukiriti Market for selling stylish second-hand sneakers, Kelvin had built a reputation among shoe lovers in Thika.

“Many young people knew him because of his shoes,” his father said softly. “He was hardworking and very orderly in life. He minded his business.”

At around 6:30 p.m., the father narrated that a call came through, one that he said had changed his life forever. A friend of my other son, who informed him that Kelvin had been shot, I asked my son to hand over the phone to me because I could not believe it.”

The family rushed to Thika Level Five Hospital.

“I knew things were bad the moment I saw him lying in blood,” Mwangi said, fighting tears. “I touched his hand and it was already cold. There was no pulse. Even before the doctors spoke, I knew my firstborn was gone.”

Doctors later informed the family that the bullet had ruptured critical internal organs, causing massive internal bleeding. Kelvin was the firstborn in a family of three and the son of Longtime and a former Tutor at Thika Technical Training Institute.

“The postmortem indicated that a bullet entered through the left side of his body and exited through the back, causing extensive damage and burns to internal organs, including the lungs. The bullet also fractured his 11th rib as it exited; he succumbed to excessive internal bleeding,” the father said after the autopsy.

Peter Githinji: The Artist Who Called for Help

A few metres away at General Kago Funeral Home stood Monicah Wanjiku and relatives from Molo in Nakuru County waiting anxiously for Peter Githinji’s postmortem.

Unlike Maximill and Kelvin, Peter was shot in Ruiru.

According to family members, the 22-year-old portrait artist had been heading home around 4 p.m. when a white vehicle approached.

According to Monicah Wanjiku, the deceased's aunt, the deceased was heading home when, suddenly, people in a white car shot him. Good Samaritans rushed him to Plainsview Hospital for first aid before he was referred to Ruiru Level Four Hospital.

What followed became painfully public.

In a TikTok video recorded at the hospital, Peter is seen writhing in pain, pleading for help. “I am gone… Vigy… Ann…” Wanjiku recalled, her voice breaking. “He kept calling their names while crying in pain.”

Wanjku added that at first, doctors seemed reluctant to attend to him, but later they were told he would be taken to the theatre, but after some time, they received the heartbreaking news that he had not made it.”

Her questions remain unanswered.

“The protest had already ended,” she said. “Why kill him? Why shoot someone who was going home?”

Another relative who lived with Githinji described him as harmless and gifted.

“Peter was known for making portraits at Ruiru stage,” he said. “He was peaceful and hardworking. He loved art and was trying to survive honestly.”

 “We need proper investigations,” the relative said. “This cannot just end like another number.”

The autopsy revealed that a bullet entered his body through the right side of the abdomen and exited on the left side, rupturing vital organs and causing severe internal bleeding that led to his death.

The family is now demanding justice.

A Growing List of Graves

Outside the mortuary, grief mixed with anger.

The deaths of Maximillan, Kelvin and Peter have reopened wounds that never fully healed in Thika and its environs, a place where protests increasingly leave behind funerals instead of solutions.

Families say the names keep changing, but the story remains painfully familiar: a young person leaves home and never returns.

And somewhere in Murang’a, Githunguri and Molo, fresh graves await young men whose biggest crime, their families insist, was simply being in the wrong place when bullets began to fly.

The three young men are set to be buried this week in Murang’a, Kiambu, and Nakuru counties at their respective ancestral homes.

The grieving families have called on IPOA to conduct swift, transparent, and independent investigations into the shootings and ensure those responsible are held to account.