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.

Apologist? I don't think I am.
What if it was your child? Who was shot dead, in the head, mistakenly, wrongly.
If he was arrested, he'd still be alive. Alive, at least, rather than dead. Too late to argue the case afterwards, if they are dead.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/f3bbc8d4-0644-4b9c-925a-01475384602f?shareToken=9a64997ffff1e9fdfb3bbefa03f33422

I think this was fairly widely known anyway, but press now being allowed to report on it.

I can say with 100% certainty that neither of my children would ever be in that position so 🤷🏻‍♀️

If it was my child I would be heartbroken. But I would also accept he was an adult, who chose to involve himself in serious criminality, and that as a consequence of the actions HE chose to take, he brought the outcome on himself. It's called taking responsibility.

For what it's worth, I'm glad it was him who ended up dead and not the officer or any members of the public, which is the potential alternative outcome. I'm more concerned about the trauma of the officer and has family who have been put through a criminal trial for doing his job.

It was also in April this year that hee was served with a domestic violence protection order to keep him away from his current pregnant girlfriend

A real prince among men

@Oblomov24

The picture of the car, that we have 'seen', and it was stationary, shows he was hemmed in and almost couldn't get out. I don't think the threat to the police officers life, the life if his colleagues, and the life of the rest of the London population , as was claimed, was actually that threatened,

I’m the other side of the channel and for info French police and Gendarmes tend to do more random stops that the UK police do and so are more exposed to the risks involved. There have been police fatalities (one such mentioned upthread) …as a result they can appear to be more trigger happy if stops go wrong and TBF some actions by law enforcement here have been controversial..

All that said a Gendarme was killed local to us a few years back when somebody who was stopped and almost hemmed by vehicles still managed to reverse a very short distance, killing an officer by running him over/crushing him.

I think the law enforcement view here now is that if a car that has stopped can move at all it still has the potential to be used as a lethal weapon.

(The offender in our local case had previous as long as your arm and got sentenced to life)

If CK had finally got his car out of the space, how hard would he have hit the police office stood infront of him, at such a low speed, enough to do what damage exactly to his legs? a bump, a bruise, broken? Not life threatening is it?

Slow speed? That car is a powerful car. Foot to the floor there is a LOT of power within a couple of metres. It’s not me carefully edging my way out of a space in my weedy hatchback. Enough to take your legs off, I bet. Enough to run right over someone on the floor.

You stand in front of a powerfully accelerating Audi if you like, I wouldn’t.

And whilst we are at it....shame on his family for trying to suppress his significant history of violent gang related activity. Trying to hide the truth and paint a victim narrative instead of taking a cold hard look at the man he actually was is why there is so little sympathy from so many people towards them. They may have lost someone they loved but that man was a danger to society. Live by the sword and die by it

If it was my child I'd be appalled by them, utterly ashamed of them, disgusted by their actions, wonder how I'd done such an appalling job of bringing them up, and feel desperately sorry for all the people they'd maimed, killed and put through such terrible experiences as the poor police officer had to endure.

You won't see it that way, of course.

Helen Lumuanganu, Kaba’s mother, sought to suppress reporting of her son’s previous convictions, gang associations and his alleged involvement in the nightclub shooting...

Utterly vile!

I hope she's ashamed of herself. She won't be though, will she.

Perhaps families can try to keep their family members from looking up to 'heroes' like CK otherwise they might make the same poor choices

Thankfully many do, but sadly it appears Kaba's family didn't number among them - or at least if they did it didn't work

Of course a family can do their very best and still see their child go wrong, but in such cases you have to wonder whether, instead of "not seeing who they were", the families see it perfectly well but would rather not address their own part in it

shame on his family for trying to suppress his significant history of violent gang related activity

Edited to add it's actually even worse than that, @Restlessinthenorth
I can quite see why they'd want this kept confidential during the trial, but reportedly they wanted to same restrictions to be maintained even afterwards, which brings me straight back to my point above

The parents' conduct in this has genuinely appalled me. I would feel so hideously responsible if I had raised a child like Chris Kaba. I understand loving him and being broken by his death, but jeez, where was that love and determination to fight for him when he was massively going off the rails, before he started beating up pregnant women, dealing drugs, and shooting people? Don't blame other people for your shitty parenting.

I'm not a mega fan of the police but I'm glad this officer got cleared.

Chris Kaba was healthily involved in drugs has previous for guns and violence are the police meant to think he wouldn't mow them down and anyone else in the way.

What a violent nasty horrible dangerous thug Chris Kaba was, the world is a much better place without him in it.

But..,
They didn't know who was in the car. So his history at the point that the gun was fired was not relevant.
He had put a hand up to show he wasn't armed.
I feel sorry for the police officer, I don't think a criminal conviction would have been right here even though I think on balance he made the wrong call.

Play with fire, get burned.

Chris Kaba was hardly a model citizen and whilst it would have been better had he not been shot dead, the lifestyle he chose came
with risks attached. His parents should perhaps be looking at their parenting and the role it played in how their son turned out and accepting he was a wrong un. They can do that but still be sad he’s gone.

The car has previously been involved in a firearms incident the previous day so they had good reason to believe the person had a firearm.

Also why didn't he gets out of the car and instead try to escape.

It's all here:

https://news.sky.com/story/chris-kaba-was-gunman-in-nightclub-shooting-days-before-he-was-killed-13234555.

It's not painting quite the same picture as the 'aspiring architect and soon-to be father' he's been described as up to now, is it?

The police get such flak for stopping and searching young black men, apparently without just cause, but they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. I know they aren't going to get it right 100% of the time and I feel for innocent black men just going about their business who are stopped and searched (as it turns out) unnecessarily. But the people I blame for that are the young black men who are involved in violent gang crime, carrying and using guns and knives on an epidemic level. Not the police, who are just trying to do an impossible and utterly thankless job in increasingly difficult circumstances.

Police officers volunteer to be trained to carry firearms. They operate in extremely stressful and volatile situations. They do not receive any extra money or benefits for this service. Who is going to want to do it in future, if this is where it gets them?

CK's family have vowed to 'fight on for justice.' Well this is justice. They've had it. Justice doesn't get much better than having your day in a British court of law with a jury, with your precious boy's violent and criminal background hidden from them. Justice doesn't guarantee you the outcome you want. Now we all know their boy was a wrong'un and a menace, you'd think they'd slink off quietly to lick their wounds in private, but oh no.

I had no idea of the stuff he'd been involved in until today. To his family I say go away and grieve quietly, stop your public wailing and hand wringing and faux indignation. We were fed the idea that this was a scared, innocent young black man, too afraid to stop his car because of police brutality and institutional racism in policing. Now we know the police were tailing him for very good reason and although he was unarmed, he carried evidence of being involved in the previous day's shooting.

Chris didn't need to end up dead but that's very much on him and his actions that day, not the fault of the officer who felt forced to pull the trigger. If Chris and people like him didn't carry and use guns then our policemen wouldn't need to either.

I truly hope not a penny more of public money is wasted on this farce, which should never have come to court.

Th recklessness of shooting someone on a dance floor too, where he could have hit any number of people who had nothing to do with his drug gang rivalry.

"Kaba has convictions dating back to when he was aged 13 for offences including stabbing with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, a knife-enabled gang assault when the victim was stabbed and had his arm broken, and two other knife offences.
In 2015, when he was 17, Kaba was convicted of affray and possession of an offensive weapon - a belt - over an incident in which a revolver-style handgun was recovered nearby, but the weapon wasn't linked to him and he was never charged in connection with it."

Lovely.

I can only begin to imagine the unbelievable stress and mental toll it's taken on the armed officer in question as well.

His parents are actually harming the cause of cases where there are genuine concerns about police brutality and institutional racism, such as the Sheku Bayoh case, where serious questions do need to be answered, by equating this thug’s misadventures with such a case.

Very well said. I see all the Kaba sympathisers on her have gone quiet now we have the true extent of his character in the public domain.

Come back now and tell us how Kaba is a decent young man, shot for no other reason than the colour of his skin. Absolute nonsense.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I could not have said it better myself, thank you!