A London police officer has been charged with the murder of a young black man shot and killed a year ago in the south of the British capital, British justice announced on Wednesday September 2. The death of Chris Kaba, in September 2022, gave rise to several demonstrations to demand justice and relaunched the debate on racism within Scotland Yard.
After a “careful examination” elements of the investigation carried out by the British police, the Crown Prosecution Service “authorized the indictment for murder”, Rosemary Ainslie, head of the special prosecution division, said in a statement. The police officer, whose identity has not been disclosed for legal reasons, is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
The victim, aged 24 at the time of the facts, was hit on September 5, 2022 by a bullet which passed through the windshield of the car he was driving in a small residential street in south London. He was followed by a police car and another police car blocked the street. He died in hospital a few hours later.
According to police, the license plate of the vehicle he was driving, which did not belong to him, had been detected by a camera signaling that it was linked to a firearms incident in the previous days.
Serial scandals
Chris Kaba “had a bright future ahead of him, but his life was cut short”denounced his family in a press release from the Inquest association, specializing in deaths linked to acts of state agents. “Chris was an unarmed black man who was shot in the head on the streets of London”underlined Anita Sharma, one of the leaders of the association, recalling the concern raised by the death of the young man, who according to her “revealed racism and violence once again” in policing in the United Kingdom.
According to Inquest, 1,870 deaths have been recorded since 1990 during or following police custody or contact with the police. They only resulted in one conviction: that of a police officer, Benjamin Monk, to eight years in prison in 2021, for manslaughter, following a reclassification of proceedings initially initiated for murder . The agent was convicted of killing former professional footballer Dalian Atkinson, who died in 2016 after being tasered for 33 seconds.
The London police are facing a crisis of public confidence. A thousand London police officers have been suspended or reassigned in one year, Scotland Yard announced on Tuesday, which launched a vast clean-up operation in its ranks after a series of scandals.