Prosecutors have charged a Metropolitan Police officer with murder after he shot rapper Chris Kaba in London last year.

Prosecutors have charged a Metropolitan Police officer with murder after he shot rapper Chris Kaba in London last year.

  • Caboose12000@lemmy.world
    44·
    11 months ago

    I’m curious how this could even happen in England, I thought their police force was totally different from the US? I thought they only used guns as a last resort instead of as a constant threat of their gangster-style authority? was this some sort of very strange circumstance? was the cop who did it some kind of deranged murderer who somehow infiltrated the police force? or are cops around the world just not as different as I thought?

    edit: this wasn’t meant to make a statement about English and American cops being similar, I’m just an idiot. was only trying to ask for more context (which I have now gotten).

    • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
      2·
      11 months ago

      The common factor here is a very biased US outlet doing the reporting. In short:

      US media: “police shoot Unarmed Black man during traffic stop”

      UK media: “suspect of shooting incident cornered by police, shot when trying to ram through roadblock. Family stops public protests after seeing footage of incident”

    • SMTRodent@sopuli.xyz
      2·
      11 months ago

      I mean he’s literally being charged with murder and the last event like this was back around 2005, but do go on about how it’s basically the same as a country where police murdering citizens and not getting charged at all is the norm.

    • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
      1·
      11 months ago

      We do, these firearms officers would have only been sent out as the car was linked to a firearms offence, they aren’t regular officers. The case is no to determine whether him letting off the one (note only one shot, not clips worth), shot was justified in terms of the threat he perceived to himself and his fellow officers or if he reacted against his training and procedure.

    • Baketime@kbin.social
      1·
      11 months ago

      I thought the main difference was police generally don’t have guns in the UK. Has this changed?

      • 520@kbin.social
        14·
        11 months ago

        No. There are of course some armed units, but they don’t do regular patrol work with their guns.

        Armed units were involved here because the car Kaba was in was linked to a shooting the day before. Any involvement of firearms will invoke an armed response from police, however that does not mean they can simply shoot on sight and say they felt their life was threatened.

      • Skua@kbin.social
        5·
        11 months ago

        It hasn’t changed. The proportion of police carrying firearms in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland operate separately, so E&W is the biggest UK data source) has held steady at about 5%. There are typically fewer than 10 total incidents in which the police actually fire a gun each year. Of course, it only takes one to result in a story like this one.

    • crackajack@reddthat.com
      1·
      11 months ago

      People are being snarky and probably misunderstand what you’re trying to ask. I presume you aren’t aware that normal, on-patrol British police do not carry firearms. There are dedicated teams of British armed police on-standby and only respond when they’re called upon on extreme situations.

      • Caboose12000@lemmy.world
        1·
        11 months ago

        yeah I think I went on a bit too much in my original comment, just genuinely wanted to know more details, I wasn’t trying make some big statement. thanks for this info I didn’t know that about British police