Some UK Police Put Down Guns After An Officer Is Charged With Murder In The Shooting Of A Black Man

It was bound to hap­pen. The ille­git­i­mate killing of unarmed Black peo­ple in the United States by police, the vast major­i­ty of which goes unpun­ished or deemed with­in guide­lines, was bound to spill over into oth­er coun­tries. Canada, Australia, Britain, and oth­ers are now employ­ing the same stan­dard of mil­i­ta­rized polic­ing. As is the case in the US, it is in the UK. So-called con­ser­v­a­tives feel the need to come out in sup­port of police even when they are accused of the most heinous and egre­gious crimes.
The polit­i­cal right is vest­ed in the sol­dier­ing that police pro­vide to white supremacy.
The UK Metropolitan Police claims it is com­mit­ted to root­ing out mis­con­duct. It has dis­missed about 100 offi­cers for gross mis­con­duct over the past year while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly say­ing it could take years to remove all cor­rupt offi­cers. In the mean­time, Londoners of col­or must exist with a force that study after study has con­clud­ed is rid­dled with deep-seat­ed racism, homo­pho­bia, and misog­y­ny. (mb)

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London’s police force said Sunday that some offi­cers are refus­ing to con­duct armed patrols after a col­league was charged with mur­der in the fatal shoot­ing of an unarmed Black man.

A Metropolitan Police marks­man was charged Wednesday over the September 2022 death of Chris Kaba, 24. Kaba was killed after offi­cers in an unmarked vehi­cle pur­sued and stopped the car he was dri­ving. He was struck by a sin­gle bul­let fired through the wind­shield as he sat in the Audi car.

The case renewed alle­ga­tions of insti­tu­tion­al racism with­in the London police depart­ment. Kaba’s fam­i­ly wel­comed the mur­der charge against the offi­cer, who has not been pub­licly named. He was grant­ed con­di­tion­al bail and is expect­ed to stand tri­al next year.

Only about one in 10 of London’s police offi­cers car­ry firearms, and the ones that do under­go spe­cial training.

The Metropolitan Police force said Sunday that “a num­ber of offi­cers have tak­en the deci­sion to step back from armed duties while they con­sid­er their posi­tion.” It said offi­cers were con­cerned that the mur­der charge “sig­nals a shift in the way the deci­sions they make in the most chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances will be judged.”

The BBC said more than 100 offi­cers had turned in their firearm per­mits and that police from neigh­bor­ing forces were called in to help patrol London on Saturday night.

The force said it still had “sig­nif­i­cant firearms capa­bil­i­ty,” but had asked the Ministry of Defense to pro­vide assis­tance with “coun­tert­er­ror­ism sup­port should it be needed.”

The request means sol­diers could be called on to do spe­cif­ic tasks the police are unable to per­form, but they won’t per­form rou­tine police work or have the pow­er of arrest.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who is in charge of polic­ing for the U.K.’s Conservative gov­ern­ment, said she would review armed polic­ing to ensure that armed offi­cers “have the con­fi­dence to do their jobs.”

“In the inter­est of pub­lic safe­ty, they have to make split-sec­ond deci­sions under extra­or­di­nary pres­sures,” Braverman post­ed on X, for­mer­ly known as Twitter. “They mustn’t fear end­ing up in the dock for car­ry­ing out their duties. Officers risk­ing their lives to keep us safe have my full back­ing, and I will do every­thing in my pow­er to sup­port them.”

Fatal shoot­ings by police in the U.K. are rare. In the year to March 2022, armed offi­cers in England and Wales fired weapons at peo­ple four times, accord­ing to offi­cial statistics.

It is also extreme­ly rare for British police offi­cers to be charged with mur­der or manslaugh­ter over actions per­formed while they were on duty.

In one of the few cas­es in recent years, a police con­sta­ble was sen­tenced in 2021 to eight years in prison for the killing of Dalian Atkinson, a for­mer pro­fes­sion­al soc­cer play­er who died after being shot by a stun gun and kicked in the head dur­ing an alter­ca­tion. The offi­cer, Benjamin Monk, was cleared of mur­der but con­vict­ed of manslaughter.

Kaba’s shoot­ing came amid intense scruti­ny of the Metropolitan Police. In 2021, an offi­cer plead­ed guilty to kid­nap­ping, rap­ing, kid­nap­ping and killing Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old woman who dis­ap­peared while walk­ing home from vis­it­ing a friend. Another offi­cer, who worked in the same par­lia­men­tary and diplo­mat­ic pro­tec­tion unit, plead­ed guilty in January to com­mit­ting dozens of rapes between 2003 and 2020.

In March an inde­pen­dent review found the London force had lost pub­lic con­fi­dence because of deep-seat­ed racism, misog­y­ny and homophobia.

The force says it is com­mit­ted to root­ing out mis­con­duct, and has dis­missed about 100 offi­cers for gross mis­con­duct over the past year. But it said last week it could take years to remove all cor­rupt officers.