UK police violence: Thousands protest in London over police killing of Black man
Thousands of people have gathered in London as protests erupted over killing of a Black man, who was shot dead by a Metropolitan Police firearms officer while he was unarmed in a car.
Demonstrators gathered at the Parliament Square before marching along Whitehall and then on to Scotland Yard.
They chanted “Who killed Chris Kaba?,” “Police killed Chris Kaba,” and “Say his name: Chris Kaba.”
Some were carrying placards proclaiming “justice for Chris Kaba”, “abolish the Met”, “no justice, no peace” and “Black Lives Matter”.
British rapper Stormzy also joined the protesters to support the family of the victim.
“Chris has a mother, he has a family, he has brothers, he has friends, people who knew him in real life, who for them it’s unbearable,” the rapper said at the protest.
“And I know it’s a very difficult thing to say… But when these people do these things, they get away with it.”
Stafford Scott, a rights campaigner from Tottenham, north London, said, “This ain’t no fight to prove unlawful killing or lawful killing, as the system tries to tell us. Today, this is us proclaiming what we know to be true: they killed that young man.”
The protests was mistaken as a mourning procession in support of the dead Queen by one of the media outlets of England.
On Monday night, Kaba was driving an Audi, which was reportedly rammed and boxed in by police. He was reportedly killed by a single shot fired through the driver’s side of the windscreen of the car.
He was rushed to the hospital where he died later that night. Kaba was due to become a father within months.
Family members of Kaba say that if he was white, he might never have been killed.
“We are worried that if Chris had not been black, he would have been arrested on Monday evening and not had his life cut short,” his family said in a statement.
His family along with the protesters have called for the suspension of the officer who fired the shot and an investigation into the murder, after finding out that Kaba was unarmed.
Kaba’s family has also asked the police watchdog to conclude its investigation within “weeks or months, not years.”
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has since launched a homicide investigation into his death, yet the Met is to decide if the involved are guilty.
But they have said that the development “does not mean that criminal charges will necessarily follow.”
They said that although the officer is under criminal investigation and his conduct is also being investigated, “it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will end up facing criminal charges or a misconduct hearing.”
According to a media report, killing of black people in England is at its highest level since 2002. In 2020, a total of 105 black people were victims of murder and manslaughter.
