Police officer cleared

[Toomanywars]

Martin Blake police officer today cleared by a jury of unlawful killing of Chris Kaba

Should police officers get more support. Perhaps not release name until after trial or inquiry.

I think you’ve seen too many Bruce Willis films and not enough Olympic shooting events.

No, you can’t stop a car by firing at its tyres. You have a police marksman who has seconds to decide how to stop a criminal about to possibly kill someone with his car, which is connected to gun crime, so he’s going to be aware that he could be shot at any second. It’s dark. There are headlights and flashing blue lights and sirens. We don’t know if the car had tinted windows but I’d be willing to take an educated guess. And you want him to shoot him in the arm with accuracy? What if that doesn’t stop him? Should he aim for the other arm and hope he takes his feet off the accelerator?

I disagree. It was right to take it to court as without a trial there would be even more people demonstrating claiming it was a racist killing by the police. Having a jury who review the evidence and find him not guilty is significant and should be accepted by the family and local activists. Without the trial many people could claim there was a cover up.

Jeez, this thread!

Some of you really will argue that black is white if it fits your narrative,

The man was a violent, dangerous, thug who was responsible for bringing misery to the streets. He could have complied with the police’s request to stop and deal with the consequences of his being in a car that was linked to a firearms offence, but he chose not to and he paid the price.

The way some of you are going on it’s like you think the police should have realised he didn’t fancy being nicked that day and let him go with a cheery wave.

Great news. Hopefully the officer can now move on and put this behind him.

I've got little sympathy for CK. The bloke was a violent thug with a history of gun offences, was driving a car involved in a firearms incident and failed to stop and surrender.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

You were arguing, incorrectly, that the police are trained to shoot people in the head and now you're offering to teach me all about it. Tempting as that is, I'd rather learn facts. All the best.

Do you think you’ve had more access to the ‘facts’ in this case than the Jury did?

Sadly not - No/little line of sight to them from the front of a moving car, plus you'd have to take your eyes off the target. Also bursting them would have zero effect at slow speed/close range.

As for shooting a limb...this is largely a Hollywood thing. Police are trained to shoot center mass or head, which is likely to cause massive cardiac arrest/brain death which are both pretty instant.

You can die from being shot anywhere, but it can take time due to blood loss, sepsis etc. Also limbs are much harder to hit accurately. This is why guidance suggests center mass/head.

You need to follow a discussion before wading in. We're talking about whether there's a Met Shoot to Kill policy and arms training.

Absolutely the right decision. I do understand why it went to trial though too!

hopefully the officer can start to move past this.

No sympathy for him. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword. Sometimes you just have to admit society is a much better place without these scumbags.

Thanks for the tip. I’ve followed it carefully enough to see that you’re not particularly bothered about the facts of the case in question so I’ll wade in wherever the fancy takes me.

Like I said, an egg mayo sandwich.

Enjoy your sandwich.

It's been really enjoyable talking to you. All the best.

Exactly.

Correct decision today.

He wasn't aggressive?! Have you seen the footage?

He should have stopped.

I agree he should have stopped. I don't agree that he should have been shot in the head. I've written quite a bit about it in this thread for reasons why.

There's an interesting discussion to be had here about Kaba's family.

They've lost their son which is - regardless of his life choices - objectively awful.

Their son has also been shot (albeit legally and justly) by a police officer from a force that has been found to be institutionally racist.

They have also pushed an unfounded conspiracy theory that he was wearing an expensive Rolex watch when he was shot, which has subsequently disappeared, the insinuation being that it was stolen by police or NHS staff (zero evidence for either).

Are they being unreasonable?

Is the Rolex in the video/ dashcam footage?

No 😅

The 'evidence' passed around online is a posed pic of him wearing a submariner, no indication of when/where it was taken/if it was real etc.

It's not strange. The difference is, 'we' have seen some news clips of the evidence.

The jury have been subject to all evidence and testimony, plus legal instructions from the judge on how to reach a conclusion from that information.

The fact that they only took three hours in a case like this is a massive indicator of how convincing the evidence was.

That ^^
If he had stopped the car and switched off the engine he wouldn't have been shot
If it had been me, my parents would have said "well WTF do you expect?"