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.