UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) authorized a murder charge on Wednesday against an acting police officer over the fatal shooting of Chris Kaba, a Black man, on September 6, 2022.
CPS charged the officer with murder after he shot and killed Kaba with a single bullet in south London. The officer’s name will remain anonymous for now, as CPS cited “legal reasons.”
CPS charged the officer after the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) provided “a thorough review of evidence,” according to the CPS Special Crime Division head Rosemary Ainslie. In Wednesday’s announcement of the charges, it was also noted that “there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information which could prejudice” the proceedings against the officer. The trial against the officer will begin at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
Local MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy had credited Kaba’s family in an interview with the BBC in March, for campaigning for a CPS investigation to open against the police officer at the time. She also went on to highlight that 1,800 people have died in state custody in England and Wales since 1990, with only one case resulting in a conviction.
Wednesday’s announcement of charges comes seven months after UK non-profit group INQUEST reported Black men are 7 times more likely to die following the use of restraint by police when compared to white men. Significantly, the report pointed to the recent deaths of three Black men in the UK, one of which was Chris Kaba. According to INQUEST, investigators have a tendency to “take at face value the officers’ denial that race played part in their actions.”
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