Were authorities swayed by public opinion in Chris Kaba case – asks former Met chief superintendent

We spoke to the former Met chief superintendent Dal Babu and began by asking him about firearms training and what officers are taught when carrying out a so-called hard stop.

Dal Babu: The key is to try and do it safely and to avoid having to use force. And if you’re discharging a firearm it can potentially, as it was in this case, be fatal. Now, Chris Kaba was driving the Audi. The police vehicles, the footage that’s been released, we’ve got him ramming the police vehicles forward and backwards. You could hear the car revving. You could hear the officers saying, ‘Get out of the way. Be careful’. Because they would have been aware that this is somebody in a vehicle with a firearms marker.

Jackie Long: Because no firearm was found in the car, he was unarmed. People will be asking could they have shot out the tyres? Is there something else they could have done? Could they have shot him somewhere else where he was perhaps wounded?

Dal Babu: So the police officer was saying that they, as is the instructions, aimed for the body mass. But this was a vehicle that was moving back and forth and through a windscreen. I think sometimes people watch American films, they think that police officers can shoot a gun out of somebody’s hand. Somebody can shoot a knee. And these are very, very difficult shots to have. But these officers who have got those skills have been selected because they are marksmen and women who are very good at managing a situation like that.

Jackie Long: I suppose that’s why people hope or expect that they might be able to do that without killing someone.

Dal Babu: Yeah, but I’m afraid the reality is very different from a movie. So if you imagine that that car had escaped from there on rims, the tyres have been shot out. How dangerous would that have been? What would have happened if that car then collides with somebody or killed somebody else?

Jackie Long: Obviously, there’s been a huge discussion today about whether this officer should ever have been charged with murder, whether this should have gone through the courts. What’s your view on that?

Dal Babu: Murder, It’s a high bar. So I was extremely surprised that the officer had been charged with murder. I think there’s some questions for the Independent Office of Police Conduct. Who were the investigators? What experience did they have of firearms incidents, did they understand what was involved in a firearms operation?

Jackie Long: But the family and friends of Chris Kaba would have wanted and would deserve a proper investigation into what happened. And surely court is the best place for that?

Dal Babu: There’s a difference between an investigation and there’s a difference between a charge. Absolutely there needs to be a thorough investigation that’s transparent and open. Absolutely. But to charge somebody with an offence, that’s unlikely, you have to ask whether the independent Office for Police Conduct in their consulting with the CPS, were they swayed by public opinion?

Jackie Long: But the CPS would have made the decision.

Dal Babu: Absolutely.

Jackie Long: They’re supposed to be absolutely above public opinion, aren’t they?

Dal Babu: That’s a question to ask the CPS and the Independent Office of Police Conduct, what was the evidence you were looking at? What made you think that you were going to get a conviction for murder?

Jackie Long: Where else would the family go to get an investigation that they would have trusted? Because we know trust from particularly the Black community in the Met police, for example, is really low.

Dal Babu: Yeah, the trust in the police is low in all sections of the community. You’re absolutely right. It’s the lowest amongst the Black community.

Jackie Long: And this isn’t going to help it, is it?

Dal Babu: No, it’s not, Jackie. But I think it’s really very important to look at the makeup of firearms commanders. When I was a firearms commander, doing the briefing, I would often be the only person of colour in that room with firearms officers. So there’s something about reflecting a command, where there’s a lack of trust in the community, that’s more reflective of the wider community.