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.

When a Jury takes only 3 hours to make a decision, it's usually clear that they think this is a "vexatious" trial brought without good reason. Indeed, the Jury sent a letter to the Judge stating this but the Judge refused to release it to the public.

It’s not an anomaly, it’s an exception. And the names of those suspects aren’t released, as an exception, to protect the identity of the victims, not the suspects. It’s a completely different legal principle.

Re-Reading about your “job” laughing as 100% you don’t “work with gangs” … your pants are on FIRE.

It's a tricky balance between ensuring a suspect's right to be considered "innocent until proven guilty" versus the need to detect crime.

There must be some way of doing it - perhaps making suspects anonymous by default unless the police or the press convince a magistrate that there is a public interest case for lifting restrictions for a given case.

‘Lessons should be learnt’

Yes don’t be a violent gangster preying on children, children and vulnerable people.

*women

Reporting restrictions are a well established feature of how the courts work in all UK jurisdictions.

Because that doesn't affect how the law is applied.

But can make an enormous difference to those going through the courts.

We do not name the victims of rape and other serious sexual offences, or give names of children or names of those associated with children or victims of sexual offences if doing so would identify the child or victim, and depending on the circumstances that can last even after conviction.

Because the guiding principle is what is fair and what is just; not what is identical.

The officer reasonably believed that lives were in immediate danger. It doesn't matter if the threat was real or perceived, just reasonably believing that you or another is threatened is enough to use force. Take a look at some case law:

Whether the plea is self-defence or defence of another, if the defendant may have been labouring under a mistake as to facts, he must be judged according to his mistaken belief of the facts: that is so whether the mistake was, on an objective view, a reasonable mistake or not.
R v Williams

How do you know about such a letter?

We know that the Jury requested to say something when giving the verdict. What we don't know is what exactly was written in the note passed to the judge requesting this (that there were notes is not unusual, the way to ask the judge a question is write it down and pass it to an usher).

Exactly what I was thinking.

if @Choochoo21 genuinely "works with gangs" then we're fucked.

Anyone 'working with' them who can't see the utterly appalling lifestyle for what it is, and the evil in these people, is part of the problem not the solution.

Thanks for the lesson. I’ve only been practising law for 20 years.

You missed the point I was making. Spectacularly.

I completely forgot until I read it just now but the car Kaba was in had actually been the getaway car the day before in a shooting outside a primary school.

Two Suspects used a shotgun to shoot through the window of a Mercedes then legged it into two cars (one each) - one being the one Kaba drove a little over 24 hours later.

The shooters had given not two shits about the hundreds of children nearby, not bothered if they caught one in the crossfire - and in less extreme circumstances not bothered about traumatising children who might have seen this shooting.

So I’m going to add to the list I made earlier about what the police DID know about the vehicle when it came up as a weapons marker on ANPR cameras.

1. This was a car involved in a shooting meaning the driver was the shooter or knew the shooter
2. The nature and location of the incident the day before shows the level of extreme danger and inconsideration the person in this car, if they were the shooter (and it’s entirely reasonable to believe they are) shows - meaning they have gone out once again posing an EXTREMELY high risk.
3. When trying to pull this potentially - actually not potentially but highly likely - dangerous person over, he tried to get away. He used every aggressive means necessary to escape police.

So @Choochoo21 with that in mind - the fact it could have been YOUR child, your family nearby when they shot the Mercedes - do you STILL think that police action was too heavy handed and that there was no indication a dangerous person was driving the car? I’m wondering if you have been labouring under the misapprehension that Kaba was simply a black man pulled over rather than a likely violent man who was highly lethal and dangerous? Is that what you thought?

BTW Kaba had gunpowder residue on his sleeve when he died and a balaclava in his pocket. If he had done what he SHOULD have done and pulled over, the fact he was driving a getaway car and had evidence of having recently shot someone would go a huge way towards a charge for the shooting the day before. It’s not reaching for the stars to suggest it was him who was the scumbag trying to murder people outside a primary school.

OK, I thought you were making a different point. What was it that you intended?

Excellent summary, @PersephonePotts

Exactly.

The police man should not have been named until the case was over and they are found guilty.
How can they be expected to do such a job, while second guessing everything going on.
As it turns out the 'victim' was a right old miscreant Already wanted for shooting someone. The reason why he wouldn't stop and was trying to ram the police cars

I agree with Persephone all these people saying 'but the police had no idea it was Chris Kaba until after they'd shot him' are missing out whole chunks of what they did know. They knew it was one of the men implicated in the shooting of the night before, based on pretty solid intelligence. Hence why there were there in the first place.

Some people prefer to continue push the narrative that he was a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time, randomly stopped (as if the fact that he was a career criminal and gangster is a mere coincidence and an irrelevance) and was only shot because he was black.

And I do wish we could ban the phrase 'an aspiring anything.' It's completely meaningless and quite misleading. Although I have doubts that there is much truth to it, to say he 'aspired to be an architect' would be fair enough, because it's clear that he wasn't one. To say he was 'an aspiring architect' gives a different impression altogether, and makes it sound as though that was very much in process and likely to happen. I am an aspiring supermodel, which is to say that I couldn't get a contract to model a giant banana fancy dress costume on Amazon, let alone do Vogue or Paris Fashion Week.

I've only heard that he 'worked in construction' so I am not sure if he was signed up to some sort or day release college course vaguely pertaining to building design or what. But the cynic in me suggests by calling him 'an aspiring architect' his useful idiots are trying to draw parallels between him and Stephen Lawrence. They were hoping to spin the same sort of narrative of an innocent young black man, dead because of a targeted racist attack and denied justice because of police lies. Thank God for body cams and CCTV these days, to be able to put that nonsense to bed.

This. Spot on.

Great post Twiglets - I also thought they were trying to appropriate Stephen Lawrence who WAS on his way to be in architect and WAS killed purely because of the colour of his skin.

I hope none of the loud voices on X have dared compare Kaba to Stephen Lawrence. If I were his family I'd be so offended at that.

I wouldn't bother 'ChooChoo21' has clearly lost the plot - probably thinks if Kaba did have a gun, the officers could have shot it out of his hand.

Yep he was in 'construction'..........
......... as is building his criminal empire and drugs business

My job is working with gang members and potential members, particularly those with ND or trauma who are more at risk of going down that path and not being to get out of it.

Maybe you need to work a lot harder.

I wonder if there are lot of pissed off journalists that were following the narrative that CK was a victim of a racist police force and now the trial is over and reporting restrictions lifted realise they were wrong and having to do some back pedalling. One problem with labelling the net institutionally racist is that when you do have an independent like this there will be pressure for the met and other institutions to show that they following all due process and in this case there was an overreach and a more police officer was charged with murder. It seems like a huge waste of tax payers money, court time and a massive stress on the officer in order to be seen politically correct.

One real concern is that we hamper the police's ability to counter armed violent criminals through fear of racism accusations so this must happen again.