UK

Another death and a different procession through London

The death of the queen and the fatal shooting by police of a young man intersected thanks to an innocent broadcasting mistake

In the days after he was fatally shot, Chris Kaba’s wider family began to organise a series of marches to raise public awareness about the circumstances of his death. Photograph: PA

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Keith Duggan in London
Thu Sep 15 2022 - 20:29

Not all the floral tributes across London are for the queen. At the bottom of the slanting hill in Kirkstall Gardens, a pleasant residential street in Streatham Hill, friends and family of the late Chris Kaba have left dozens of bouquets and notes over the past fortnight. Tealights remain after the vigil held on Tuesday evening at the spot where Kaba (24), was fatally shot by an officer from the Metropolitan Police following a car chase through the area on Monday, September 5th. He was sitting in the driver’s seat of a car which had become boxed into the narrow street. A single shot was fired. The bullet struck him in the head and he died two hours later.

In the days afterwards, Kaba’s wider family began to organise a series of marches to raise public awareness about the circumstances of his death. An overhead shot of a march which took place through central London last Saturday, in which many participants held Black Lives Matter banners, was mistakenly interpreted by Sky News as a gathering on its way to mourn at Buckingham Palace: the broadcaster quickly moved to clarify the error.

Since then, supporters have organised further marches to raise public awareness into his death. Several MPs including Dianne Abbot, the long-standing Labour MP for Hackney, and Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP for Streatham since 2019, have voiced their support for the campaign.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has since confirmed that Kaba was unarmed. The car involved in the pursuit was not registered to him. The dark Audi car registration number signalled a police alert, linking it to a previous alleged firearms incident. Following a police pursuit, the car was stopped using “tactical contact”, meaning it was shunted or rammed. The IOPC later announced a homicide investigation into Kaba’s death and this week suspended the officer who fired the shot from frontline duties.

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“The IOPC have been really vague so we have asked some very basic questions, such as was the car registered to him; was the car searched,” Jefferson Bosela, a cousin of the deceased man who is acting as spokesperson for the family, told Newsnight on Wednesday evening.

“They have either delayed the answer or they haven’t given us any answers at all. And it has been quite frustrating for us and the family, as we are mourning but also, we are not getting any clarity around the actual situation.”

The family have been told that the investigation could take six to nine months to complete. Bosela said he does not have full confidence that the investigation would arrive at the truth of what happened.

“Not necessarily, no, I don’t. The IOPC is former police officers that now work for them. And for me, that is quite questionable because there is going to be inherent bias. So, for me, naturally, I am going to be mistrustful of them.”

Chris Kaba (24) was shot by armed officers from the Metropolitan Police. Kaba was unarmed. Photograph: PA

Responding to social media speculation regarding a previous criminal conviction which Kaba served, Bosela suggested it was immaterial to the investigation into his death.

“Just because you have been convicted of a crime in the past in which you’ve served your sentence, by the way, that doesn’t give anyone a right to kill you. Secondly, the police officers are saying that the car was suspect because the ANPR [automatic number-plate recognition] system got triggered but the number-plate was not registered to Chris. So that shows police didn’t know that was Chris in that car. Police are saying Chris was this or that but unless the police come forward with new information, they didn’t know Chris was in the car. That could have been anyone. His moral compass doesn’t matter. As much as I believe he was amazing and a good person, even if he wasn’t in this case that does not matter because they did not know Chris was in that car — unless it was a targeted from the get go.”

On Wednesday, the IOPC confirmed that the Kaba family would be allowed to watch police video footage of the incident that led to his death. The investigation comes during a period when public confidence in policing among residents in the Lambeth borough, where the shooting took place, was reported at just 38 per cent.