Chris Kaba

[RaceWithChyna]

The police officer who shot Chris Kaba has finally been charged with murder. It took a while after investigations had to be held but I’m glad the CPS decided to charge the anonymous police officer.

Before people start, yes he’d been in jail. Yes, he’d apparently drove towards officers at an attempt to get away. None of this means he deserved to be killed with an immediate head shot. To make matters worse, he wasn’t even the person they were after. They only realised it was someone else after the fact that he was dead.

I hope the family get the justice that they deserve.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-66865099.amp

I don't know why you're talking about "officers that removed JCdMs head".

But the European Court Of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled it didn't break Article 2 nor was it murder since it was a case of honestly believing he was Hussain Osman leading to an honestly held belief he was a suicide bomber.

Officer C12 testified he wouldn't have shot him had he remained seated and that he personally regrets what happened.

See:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security-demenezes-idUSKCN0WW1JL

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/3254455/Police-marksman-who-shot-Jean-Charles-de-Menezes-apologises-to-family.html

It's very easy to forget the operational reality in real time in the case of armed officers and SAS in cases such as Jean Charles de Menezes, Diarmuid O'Neill and the PIRA 3 (McCann, Farrell & Savage) from the comfort of your own home.

ECtHR was careful not to place undue burdens on law enforcement right across Europe carrying out their duties, especially counter-terrorism operations which was the case for all three aforementioned.

Chris Kaba's case has some similarities to the three, but also some differences. The other cases highlight how difficult these things are which the public don't really appreciate as well as the position of the law, including human rights.

So, things are usually more complicated than threads such as these appreciate. Next year's trial of Officer NX121 charged with the murder of Chris Kaba will have lots of technical complex information.

No

It's the fact that you do a job for no more money , and are expected to go into the most dangerous situations, take the highest levels of risk and get absolutely no help, support from the force .

The fed is not a union and it's illegal for police to strike but being a firearms officer is a sideways step , you get no more money and no better thought of . Why would you do that now when the chances are if you are called to an incident because you have a firearm only to use it mean you are then up on a murder charge ?

Why would anyone take that risk for the peanuts money ?
Yeah it's Gucci kit and you don't do the slog of normal response work but the risk isn't worth it

I get paid the same to sit behind a desk and do desk top investigations as those guys do to get called to firearms jobs . I'll keep my desk ta .

The rarity of prosecutions tells you that you will not be up on a murder charge just because you have used your firearm. Do you believe that police officers should be above the law? If you believe that armed police should never be charged with murder or manslaughter when they use their weapons, that is exactly what you are advocating.

That is clearly not what I'm advocating.m

I'm saying I would not trust myself to carry a firearm given the risks involved in having to make split second decisions when a car is being driven at you . So I would not move to firearms.
It clearly been a wake up call to many in that role . I've been involved in several firearms incidents . I was shot at going to a routine domestic. My firearms colleagues brought a siege safely to a close without anyone other than the suspect shooting his weapon.

One of them saved my arse t dragging me round the side of the house when the suspect opened fire as I knocked on the door from his upstairs window - a porch saved me from being hit .

Unless you have ever been in this situation it's very very hard to say what you'd do .

I'm just an ordinary middle aged woman with kids and family . I don't get danger money . I was extremely glad my firearms colleagues heard the incident on the radio and decided to back me up otherwise I'd have been toast .
I was in response and the call came from a mental health nurse saying a guy had rung up 111 saying he had a gun and was going to,shoot the first uniform at his house . The force incident manager said he didn't believe it and sent me , an unarmed,ed officer to deal .

as I knocked on the door he leaned out of the window and started shooting .

He had a cache of weapons. On arrest he was found to,have a zombie knife down his trousers , the gun, a tac vest, a sword, and a machete .

And that's why we need firearms officers . But I fully understand why those same officers are downing tools and saying nope . It's a massive responsibility and believe ,me , until someone shoots at you or tried to kill you with some other weapon like a car , you have no idea of the momentary terror you feel . Instinct is self defence . With whatever is in your hand .

Is there any merit to having a gross negligence charge or similar applied to firearms police only? Firearms officers are required to carry weapons and shoot to kill possibly as part of their unlike probably the entirety of the rest of the British population. In a case like this a discharge of a weapon would professional misjudgment akin to a clinician not following all protocols under stress which lead to a fatality or other harm. The firearms officer, if there were errors, would face sanction in terms of possible redeployment in the force or even some light sentence of the negligence was sufficient. A law like this would remove the need of the use of a murder charge when quite obviously what has occurred does not equate to the term murder in a lot of the public's eyes.

Job

This event certainly has not brought a George Floyd moment as the officers in that case were obviously completely negligent and had opportunities to release a restraint on an offender which would very lead to death over a number of minutes. In addition the officers were under no particular imminent threat when the murder happened. Possibly the British are a little more considered in their approach to the uniformed services.

Unless you have ever been in this situation it's very very hard to say what you'd do.

I agree, and we must not use hindsight to condemn people unfairly.

Firearms officers choose are required to carry weapons and shoot to kill possibly as part of their unlike probably the entirety of the rest of the British population.

FTFY

There is NO "shoot to kill" policy in the UK at all!

The goal is to stop a threat, so the policy is actually "shoot to incapacitate" armed or honestly believed to be armed suspects.

Sometimes it is necessary to actually kill a suspect which I'll explain in answering one of the OP's questions further back.

But any idea of a "shoot to kill" policy is misunderstanding, ignorance or an agenda. There is no such policy in Met Police, PSNI, Police Scotland or the police forces across England & Wales.

This is shown in the statistics showing how many incidents they've been called out to versus actual discharges of firearms versus injuries versus fatal injuries.

The stats:

Over 18,000 firearms incidents last year and only 10 where a weapon was discharged.

For perspective.

It's good to ask "why not shoot the tyres? Why not shoot them in the arm, hand or leg?".

But it often also means the person asking the question isn't aware of the reality of shooting somebody.

Let's take the case of Usman Khan in the 2019 London Bridge attack. Khan appeared to be wearing a suicide vest and despite the fact firearms officers shot him around a dozen times Khan was still alive...able to move. Shot in the head yet still able to sit up minutes later.

This shocked professional police firearms officers:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57354874

Turns out it's not necessarily straightforward to kill somebody with multiple firearms. Never mind one.

So, shooting somebody in the arm, hands or legs ISN'T going to reliably stop them from shooting innocent people or detonating a bomb.

The policy is shoot to incapacitate. Not shoot to kill. Khan refused to comply with police demands to begin with, so couldn't be arrested.

Likewise, shooting a tyre or two won't reliably stop a vehicle. But shooting the driver is more likely to stop it.

In situations where a suspect is refusing to yield to law enforcement or soldiers such as SAS, it is authorised to fire weapons at them. If there's a weapon or honest belief they're armed in some way, it's authorised and legal to shoot them. They can shoot until the suspect is no longer a threat. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean kill them, but it is an option available depending on the circumstances.

In the majority of incidents firearms officers are called out to, it is resolved without police firing a shot. A minority of incidents end with the suspect injured by police firearms. A smaller proportion still ends with a fatal injury which isn't very common in the UK.

The policy is shoot to incapacitate.

Shooting a suspect in the arms, hands or legs not only DOESN'T reliably stop them from carrying out a threat, but it is also very difficult to hit a small moving target like those.

On top of that, it's possible for a bullet to pass through hands, arms and legs to travel on to kill an innocent bystander. Olivia Pratt Korbel was killed when a bullet hit her mother's hand and travelled on to kill her.

Bullets don't usually travel through the torso as easily, so that's another reason to shoot that area. The other reason being is it's easier to hit a moving target that's big like the torso.

All that said, sometimes police operations go wrong and the wrong person is killed. Police operations involving firearms will never go perfectly as there's so many variables at play.

Or an officer fired a shot just as any perceived threat had ended which the prosecutor Tom Little KC was suggesting in relation to the shooting of Chris Kaba.

But it is not as simple as shooting a suspect in the hands, arms or legs. Or even shooting tyres which is also a small target in relation to the windscreen or driver.

These situations are fast moving and complicated.

Absolutely nailed explaining it there downative .

I should add I'm not a serving police officer or soldier, but I do have experience of terrorism and a strong interest in terrorism, security & counter-terrorism.

I also read court rulings on various cases of terrorism and other shootings. That's how I know certain things.

The firearms officers returned to their voluntary duties 4 days ago.

However, Australia are looking to poach our officers and highlighting the support they give to theirs after shootings.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/27/police-western-australia-chris-kaba-shooting-met/

And no one knows the colour of the officer who shot Kabba .

Balance of probabilities, brother mine. Balance of probabilities.

Well said . I have family that have been in the armed forces in battle zones and they all said when you know it's kill or be killed you just do it . It's automatic. The survival urge is very strong .

The problem here is that the police think all black people look the same and have no idea how to tell black people apart. Kaba was not the man they were looking for. He tried to explain himself but the police didn’t listen: he didn’t try to drive at them at the first instance and there are witness statements to that. Thousands of black people get racially profiled just because they’re rich and driving a nice car - and when they complain they get choked / shot / beaten — how the fuck is that fair?

He was In a cat linked to some kind of firearms incident the day before, possibly less than 24h. No amount of explaining is going to help in that situation.

The whole situation is ready murky, are there many details around?

how the fuck is that fair?

Since when was life fair ? Personally I'd like to think it's nice - for me and others - to try and undo the inbuilt unfairness as part of feeling I deserve the appellation "human".

However it's not a universal view. There are plenty among us who think "lifes not fair. So sad. Too bad" and carry on about their business.

Where is this info about him trying to have explained from? The IOPC statement linked to earlier says the car had made contact with the marked police vehicle. No mention of discussions

The IOPC statement from the beginning of last year's inquest stated the Audi and marked police vehicles DID make contact. They also stated the police had to change tactics to an "inline extraction" - armed officers approaching the vehicle with the intention of removing the driver and arresting them.

It's not clear at this point that it was a case of mistaken identity. The Audi vehicle was definitely of interest having been involved in a firearms incident the previous day. A marker was then put on the ANPR system and that is always going to attract police attention due to the history of the car.

We don't even know if Chris Kaba was the registered keeper of the Audi vehicle.

You've made a lot of assumptions there isn't information or evidence to support at this point.

The trial is 22nd September 2024. We'll know more then. Not before.