Glad that the judge has decided to release some of the information regarding Kaba's gang affiliations and the fact that he was likely to have been prosecuted for shooting someone himself prior to this incident as this will hopefully make some of those keen to start shouting about police brutality or racism think a bit harder.
It was only right, of course, that this information was not made known to the jury who heard the case against the armed policeman who shot and killed Kaba as this would have likely influenced their decision and prejudiced the case but this also then surely makes their verdict of "not guilty" far less questionable.
Kaba was driving a car known to have been used in a recent shooting and when he was boxed in by police vehicles he repeatedly tried to ram his way out which would have put officers attempting to arrest him at severe risk. The officers did not, apparently, know who was driving the car nor whether the driver had a weapon.
It is surely only right that the fact that Kaba was subsequently shot and killed meant that an investigation into the shooting was held and questions asked, especially over whether the use of lethal force was necessary. Exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to judge this without being privy to all the information the jury heard but clearly they thought that there were sufficient mitigating circumstances to give a verdict of not guilty.
Whilst I believe that all such police shootings should be investigated by an independent body to help ensure that such actions are both lawful and justified and prevent cover-ups, I do not, however, think that any officer should be publicly named unless found guilty. The officer in this case has already apparently had a bounty put on his head by other members of Kaba's gang because of this. To put anyone who risks their life in the service of the public and who has been found innocent of such charges in this situation is surely totally unacceptable.
It is, of course, very sad that a young man -even one involved in gangs-should lose his life and I feel genuinely sorry for his parents and family but the bottom line is that all he had to do to have lived was to simply stop the car, get out and surrender to the police.
Lots of noise about this case being yet a further example of police racism but whilst I believe that there sadly remains a lot of racist attitudes within our police forces (especially the Met) if the driver had been white would the outcome have really been any different?
As with George Floyd, Kaba was certainly no innocent but the difference is that Floyd's death was so obviously un-necessary and almost certainly racially motivated. The circumstances around Kaba's death, on the other hand, are far less certain. He was not armed but he made no effort to surrender and put officers lives at risk by driving at them and, of course, he was driving a car known to have been involved in a recent shooting so it would be a reasonable assumption to believe that there was a high chance that the driver was armed.
Under the current law, the officer concerned had to prove that he acted because he felt there was a genuine threat to the lives of either the public or other officers and there was little time to make his decision. The jury clearly felt that the officer acted within the law. It is easy to say that Kaba was not armed, that the officers could have moved out of the way as he rammed their cars and that he need not have been shot and killed (and there is none of this shoot them in the leg business like in the movies, the training is shoot to kill to ensure the threat is removed) but the simple fact is that Kaba's own actions brought this on. The officers identified themselves as armed police and all he had to do to avoid being killed was surrender.
