Bit grim that the fascist **** we have for a Home Secretary is currently taking to Twitter to comment on a live murder case.
Incredibly difficult issue. We need armed police to deal with gangs, villains and terrorists. They are called on to make split second decisions. Do we jail them for life if they get it wrong? Surely not if they act in good faith. So there probably needs to be a special defence for them, that applies in the absence of bad faith and (possibly) gross negligence.
It is a difficult issue. It doesn’t need the useless twat sticking her oar in at this point. She’s meant to be a qualified lawyer.
Armed police are handing their guns in, in large numbers, in protest. That's a public safety issue, which is her province. She has to address that. She's reviewing the rules.
She can address it privately or after the trial has completed. Playing to the gallery of the dregs of society who still support her when the CPS have spent months deliberating over it and obviously therefore there’s a case to answer is just populist nonsense.
How would you address the point that we may not have armed police in the meantime? Just put up with it and hope villains and terrorists don't shoot too many people?
Probably have the relevant minister treat it like a strike negotiation. They’re getting good at those. We’re not going to not have armed police. We have our well resourced and plentiful army for emergencies. It’s right that there’s a process rather than just giving armed officers carte blanche to do what they want.
Had he done what was asked would he be alive today Kaba was driving an Audi Q8, not registered to him, which was followed by an unmarked police car occupied by armed officers.[5] The Audi was believed by police to have been linked to a "firearms incident" the day before through automatic number-plate recognition.[5] The police car following did not activate their lights or sirens.[5] At around 10.07pm, Kaba made a left turn from New Park Road onto Kirkstall Gardens.[5] A marked armed response vehicle was waiting on this road.[5] Police vehicles were said by witnesses to have boxed the car in, and witnesses claimed that Kaba ignored repeated orders to get out of the vehicle, and was trying to ram the Audi through the roadblock.[6] Armed officers exited their vehicles then approached the Audi on foot.[5] According to the IOPC, a police officer fired a single round at Kaba through the car's windscreen, striking him.[5][6] He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died of his injuries just after 12:00 am the following day.[7]
No one is talking about carte blanche, but the police are a special case and the army is not a permanent solution. There is a big political issue here, and that is why Braverman is rightly involved. Labour need to make clear their position too.
Yeah we can’t have the government of 13 years governing until we know what the opposition would have done. She’s ****ed up, for the millionth time, in a role she’s demonstrated she has neither the expertise or the intelligence for. She’s nothing but a far right cheerleader there to stop a weak unelected PM haemorrhage votes to the even more rabid parties.
In 2022/23 the IOPC investigated 196 deaths linked to police custody or contact with the police. They included suicides in and just after custody, car fatalities after police pursuits, deaths through illness in custody, and 3 fatal shootings outside of custody. The IOPC didn’t recommend any charges of murder or manslaughter be brought in these cases. In fact the last policeman to be charged with and found guilty of manslaughter on duty was the one who tasered and kicked Dalian Atkinson to death a few years ago. The last charge of murder/manslaughter in the course of duty to be brought against a policeman before that was 35 years ago. So if I were a policeman I would think I was fairly well protected from prosecution, the IOPC are clearly not trigger happy with recommending charges being brought against police officers in the event of deaths of members of the public. Rather shy of it in fact. Nobody faced charges for the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes for example. Or even disciplinary action. Yet in this case the IOPC thought it should be referred to the CPS, which thought the evidence justified a murder charge. This is a very unusual event. But before the evidence is put before a court the accused’s colleagues kick up a fuss and politicians of a certain stance want to ‘protect’ police officers with guns to make sure they feel ok about shooting people, apparently. Let’s remember, this is the force which thought it was ok for the rapist/murderer of Sarah Everard to be a designated firearms officer. For all the people speculating that the death of Chris Kaba was justifiable in the circumstances, I could speculate that the officer who did it was just an nutter itching to shoot someone. Perhaps we should just wait and let the law take its course, because, to labour the point, it is such a rare event for a police officer who kills a member of the public to have to answer for it. Another nail in the coffin of the Met though, which surely has to be broken up.
Every Met Firearms officer has now stepped down, apart from 5 who are on leave. About 3000 apparently. They will know the circumstances of the Kaba death from their colleagues. I assume they take the view that the firearms officer charged is a scapegoat to prevent the rioting, arson and looting we saw when police shot the criminal Mark Duggan. Shootings by the police are exceptionally rare. The Kaba shooting must go to trial but that will take years. In the meantime, there is a crisis for the Home Secretary to deal with, because in London now, only villains, gang members and terrorists have guns.
