It’s much safer to defame someone if the police kill him first. Last week, the media unanimously declared that Chris Kaba had “shot man in nightclub days before his death”, after a judge granted an application, supported by the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner Stuart Cundy, to disclose various allegations against Kaba. Kaba did have previous, serious convictions, but the allegation that he attacked the man in the nightclub has never been proved in court. If Kaba was alive he would likely be lawyering up.
Whether by coincidence or design, revealing Kaba’s history has made Martyn Blake’s acquittal for murder seem like an endorsement of his reaction in shooting Kaba in the face. The implication seems to be that Kaba was a “bad guy” whose death, in that moment, was justified. Surely, however, we’re entitled to expect more from the police?
The Met’s decision to release details about Kaba’s past has distracted from questions about why police repeatedly create the circumstances which they later say justify their own violence. In 2021 I acted as counsel to the parliamentary inquiry into the policing of the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard. The Met had violently “dispersed” peaceful mourners on Clapham Common. Male officers shouted aggressively, threw women violently to the ground, and trampled the floral tributes left for Sarah. They claimed their actions were necessary because the protest (which took place during the Covid lockdown) was “unsafe”.
According to the inquiry’s report, Reclaim These Streets (RTS), a coalition of women set up in the wake of Sarah’s murder, proposed a socially distanced vigil on the Common. They organised stewards to maintain social distancing, sound systems to ensure people didn’t need to crowd to hear speeches, and a detailed risk assessment. The Met claimed the event was outlawed under Covid regulations (it wasn’t) and threatened RTS with fines of up to £10,000. Lambeth Council warned people would likely gather in any case, and it would be better if they did so in an organised and Covid-safe manner. The Met ignored the council and forced RTS to back out. When (as predicted) people gathered anyway— without RTS’s Covid safety measures—police declared the event unsafe and claimed they had no choice but to intervene.
Kaba was killed during a “hard stop”, a tactic in which police “block in” a vehicle with other cars and then charge the target with weapons drawn, sometimes screaming orders and obscenities. It’s almost guaranteed to provoke panic and erratic behaviour. Daniel Bailey, associate director at the Bush Theatre in west London, says he was subject to a “hard stop” in the late 2000s. He recalls: “My insides told me to run… to fight… to resist on instinct. You don’t know what you’ll do to survive in a moment as hyper-taut tense as that.”
In 2005, after Azelle Rodney (like Bailey, an unarmed black man) was shot dead during a “hard stop”, the Independent Police Complaints Commission recommended the Met review the tactic. No review occurred. In 2011 Mark Duggan (another unarmed black man) was killed during another “hard stop”.
I spoke to an expert in armed policing (on condition of anonymity because their current assignment is sensitive) who confirmed that in an emergency, they might use cars to block in a suspect they believed to be armed. But the expert found the Met’s tendency to rush cars “aggressive”. It unnecessarily escalates the situation, putting both the officers and suspect at greater risk. They added, “armed officers make better decisions with more time and information available to them”. The Met, they said, could instead wait to approach suspects when they are on foot, use armoured vehicles to create better cover for officers, or adopt tactics which emphasise slowing the situation down and creating distance.
Both Kaba and Blake may well have panicked. Kaba may have initially tried to escape by ramming the blocking cars. At his trial, Blake said he thought his colleagues were in danger, but he was unable to identify the officer to whom he referred. In fact, by the time Kaba was shot, his car was stationary, and his hands were ”clearly visible” on the steering wheel. Blake relied on the defence that he had to make a “split-second” decision in a “high-pressure” situation. But that situation was, itself, created largely by the use of the “hard stop” tactic.
After Clapham Common, the police were given extra powers to shut down protest. In the days after Blake’s trial concluded, police chiefs demanded that their officers are given special treatment if they kill members of the public. The government later announced special privileges for police accused of killing civilians—in future, police charged after shooting at suspects will likely remain anonymous, unless they are convicted. Inquest, the charity which supports victims’ families, called the proposals “effective immunity”. It seems likely after the Kaba case that more unarmed black men will be killed by police. What incentive is there for the Met to heed the warnings it has ignored for two decades? The government’s only action since has been to give some officers privileges denied to the rest of us.
