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Chris Kaba, 24, shot dead by police in Streatham, Mon 5th Sept 2022

They were never going to find him guilty.
Just imagine, just for a moment, a world where a cop was found guilty of murdering a Black man during a police stop in South London.
I cannot, cannot imagine such a thing happening.
This.

This thread is bonkers. If you’re stopped by armed police and then try to ram your way out not that surprising if you get shot tragic though it is.
Shoot the tyres?

I am now going to use a cliche - two wrongs don't make a right. Is the world a safer place now that he's dead? Probably. Was the way he died lawful? Well, the justice system has decided but The Guardian has written a further article on this:


Which includes the following paragraphs:

"The argument appears to be supported by the fact that no police officer has ever been convicted of murdering a suspect and that the only time an officer has been found guilty over a death in the line of duty in the last 37 years was for manslaughter.

However, in that 2022 case, in which PC Benjamin Monk was convicted over the death of the former footballer Dalian Atkinson, the officer did not kill the former professional footballer with a firearm but used an electric stun gun on him and kicked him in the head as he lay on the ground."

So all those deaths in and out of custody (usually involving Black males) and not one police officer has ever been convicted. How remarkably fortuitous.
 
The cop should have been locked up. If the perp had shot the cop in the face through a car's windscreen I doubt he'd be seeing the light of day again. It's fucking weird. Surely out of 12 people on that jury one or two must have had misgivings.
Well there are probably no circumstances were shooting an on duty cop in the face is legal. The police are allowed to legally shoot people however.
 
Well there are probably no circumstances were shooting an on duty cop in the face is legal. The police are allowed to legally shoot people however.

You can kill an on-duty cop, see Kenny Noye, played them at their own game with his own honestly held belief. They never forgave him for that though.
 
How would you describe someone who carries a gun in to a crowded nightclub, shoots a man in the leg, chases him out of the club and shoots him again. In front of multiple witnesses. On the face of it that does sound a tad gung-ho and ever so slightly anything-goes gangster-ish.
Proper guns-ho gangsters put a bullet through the forehead
 
If anything good comes of this, hopefully it will be that his gangster mates (the ones not already locked up) and those engaged in similar lifetsyles of intentional, violent crime, take a long hard look at themselves and decide that going around shooting people in nightclubs and playing Gran Theft Auto with the Police isn't particularly wise and one day you may well come unstuck.
 
iirc 10 out of a jury of 12 have to agree, so two having misgivings wouldn't matter
It has to be 12 at first, the judge can then lower it to 10 if there is no unanimous verdict, or at least that was what happened when I was on a jury.

I don't get people saying they don't understand how the jury could say not guilty, it's pretty clear to be how. For a criminal trail murder had to be proven, since the police are legally allowed to shot people it is very easy to create doubt that this was murder. It's easy to say it is obvious on a message board but it is very differnt when you are there and talking the role seriously. It is not enough to just think the cop was in the wrong you have to belive it has been proved he acted unlawfully. Typical things are rather straightforward as if you shoot someone you are almost certainly guilty of something, but with the police it is not as simple as there is a much harder cut off people legal and illegal, and it will actually be very difficult to prove it was illegal, no matter what you or I may belive.
 
It has to be 12 at first, the judge can then lower it to 10 if there is no unanimous verdict, or at least that was what happened when I was on a jury.

I don't get people saying they don't understand how the jury could say not guilty, it's pretty clear to be how. For a criminal trail murder had to be proven, since the police are legally allowed to shot people it is very easy to create doubt that this was murder. It's easy to say it is obvious on a message board but it is very differnt when you are there and talking the role seriously. It is not enough to just think the cop was in the wrong you have to belive it has been proved he acted unlawfully. Typical things are rather straightforward as if you shoot someone you are almost certainly guilty of something, but with the police it is not as simple as there is a much harder cut off people legal and illegal, and it will actually be very difficult to prove it was illegal, no matter what you or I may belive.
Weberian claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force, innit?
1729616842894.png
source
 
Slightly off topic question here, but do other countries follow our system where a suspect's criminal history can generally never be made known to the jury?
 
Slightly off topic question here, but do other countries follow our system where a suspect's criminal history can generally never be made known to the jury?
US



  • Courts won't admit evidence of any old conviction to impeach (discredit) a witness. Rather, the crime must typically be either a felony or any offense (misdemeanor or felony) involving dishonesty, such as fraud.
 
Not saying it did have anything to do that with. Cupid's description of him as gung-ho though certainly applies to his actions in that nightclub less than a week before this happened. The bodycam footage, to my eyes does not justify a shot being fired at all, indeed the other cops all saying, "Fuck!" suggests they thought it was over the top too. The car was firmly boxed in when the shot was fired.
Sorry - should have been clearer; I didn't think you did - I should have quoted cupid, not you.
 
au contraire. the british orchestration of death squads in the six counties is well attested. for example, https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/analyses/no-221-perfidious-albion.pdf (statewatch document on collusion in the six counties)

It's a small step though. Better than no prosecution as in the past?
The jury heard all the evidence ; if people want to move away from the jury system then not only should they say so but what they would like to replace it with-
 
US



  • Courts won't admit evidence of any old conviction to impeach (discredit) a witness. Rather, the crime must typically be either a felony or any offense (misdemeanor or felony) involving dishonesty, such as fraud.
In this case the Judge was right Kaba convictions etc were not relevent to the murder trial- the officer was being judged on that split second decision- also i the police did not know who the driver was. It was the car they were following not the person
 
Slightly off topic question here, but do other countries follow our system where a suspect's criminal history can generally never be made known to the jury?
Most countries do not have juries as they do not use the Common Law system.
 
This.


Shoot the tyres?

I am now going to use a cliche - two wrongs don't make a right. Is the world a safer place now that he's dead? Probably. Was the way he died lawful? Well, the justice system has decided but The Guardian has written a further article on this:


Which includes the following paragraphs:

"The argument appears to be supported by the fact that no police officer has ever been convicted of murdering a suspect and that the only time an officer has been found guilty over a death in the line of duty in the last 37 years was for manslaughter.

However, in that 2022 case, in which PC Benjamin Monk was convicted over the death of the former footballer Dalian Atkinson, the officer did not kill the former professional footballer with a firearm but used an electric stun gun on him and kicked him in the head as he lay on the ground."

So all those deaths in and out of custody (usually involving Black males) and not one police officer has ever been convicted. How remarkably fortuitous.

Shooting the tyres is not apparently effective. You can drive on rims anyway, not very well and not for long even if the tyres did burst. It's not Netflix.
 
Slightly off topic question here, but do other countries follow our system where a suspect's criminal history can generally never be made known to the jury?

In this case it wasn't relevant as the officers did not know who was driving the car, so would not have been acting in knowledge of that. It was the vehicle that was flagged up. So this was correct not to tell the jury of Kaba's past.
 
Weberian claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force, innit?
View attachment 447915
source

Lol. And just to firmly shut that box that has never seen an officer found guilty of murder in these circumstances that disproportionately involve black people

 
And just to big up my old friend Deb,

Deborah Coles, the director of Inquest, which supported the Kaba family, said: “The cynical attempts to protect the police from the rule of law must be rigorously resisted, as this is in effect giving them immunity.

“Given the disquiet about police killings, the use of force and cultures of racism and misogyny within the police, this will be seen as calculated attempts to evade scrutiny and accountability and further erode public confidence.”

And in relation to the revealing of his past,


Deborah Coles, director of INQUEST, which supported Kaba’s family, said: These are familiar state tactics that demonise the deceased to reflect from the stark reality of the shooting dead of an unarmed black man whose identity they did not know.

“Police do not have a license to kill, and should not be judge, jury and executioner. Rather than trying to legitimise Chris’s killing, the police should focus on ensuring that these killings end.”
 
Lol. And just to firmly shut that box that has never seen an officer found guilty of murder in these circumstances that disproportionately involve black people

Why do they bother?

As both emanymton and brogdale state above, the police are pretty much already in this position i.e. they are allowed to legally shoot people.

This is the starting position and framework that investigations come from and works within, which sets the bar incredibly high and doesn't apply to anyone else except perhaps the military. This already allows them to dodge accountability because they can hide behind the, "honestly held belief", explanation (rather similar to politicians, I'd suggest).

The thing is, we all make mistakes, all the time. I do at work, I do at home. Except I'm not usually carrying a firearm which can expend lethal force.

Slight detour: I had some short fire safety training at work today and was given some hypothetical scenarios (I work with people with Learning Disabilities & Autism):

1. The alarm's going off and we have to evacuate the building. One service user is ready and prepared to leave, the other point blank refuses to budge. What do you do?
2. You have five service users in front of you downstairs and you know that there's another two upstairs. The alarm goes off and you suspect that the fire is upstairs, do you pass on the five people downstairs to someone else to go and assist your colleague upstairs, or is the greater number you can save your higher priority?

I've done all the e-learning modules, I've passed the Health &Safety face-to-face training, but I really don't think I am actually prepared to make such a difficult and ethical decision in either situation. My instinct is always to save as many people as possible under the circumstances, but sometimes that's not always the best thing to do.

Having to face the family of anyone that might have perished due to my decision-making would be foremost in my mind and, to be honest, if I were responsible for anyone's death I would immediately leave the service as I would feel that I had failed in my duties. I don't know the mindset of anyone who is trained to carry and use a firearm but, it seems to me, the law is already heavily weighted in their favour if they make a mistake or a bad judgement call.
 
I feel weirdly dirty in saying this but I sorta get where the guy who shot him is coming from.
If you are armed police you are a hammer and the world is nails.
To twist Yoda's phrase there is only do or do not. There is no try.

I don't blame him as much as I blame the system for being a bit shit at giving good options.


But then I also remember that the armed police are notoriously full of themselves and shit.
So maybe thus guy is a trigger happy fuckhead.


In both cases I feel the main issue is how we got here.

It shouldn't have gone down like this but the failing seems to be more than one dude.

Not saying he should have got off with no charge.
 
2. You have five service users in front of you downstairs and you know that there's another two upstairs. The alarm goes off and you suspect that the fire is upstairs, do you pass on the five people downstairs to someone else to go and assist your colleague upstairs, or is the greater number you can save your higher priority?
Tangent on this one but I feel the answer is you deal with your 5. You suspect one thing but you know another. What if the fire is downstairs and the person below is overwhelmed?

Even if you manage a hand off you then get into the murky area of going towards danger.

1 seems a bit harder in execution but simpler in morality.
 
If he was thought to be in a gang and thought to have caused people harm, the correct way to deal with that is to detain him, investigate alleged crimes, and put him on trial for them in a court with a jury.

Not execution by cop.

I don't think the revelations about his past and his alleged involvement in criminal activities should have any bearing on our reaction - it is wrong for a police officer to have shot him dead.
 
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