Another family mourns

Written by David Fletcher 15 Sep 2022
Another family mourns

As groups of people streamed into London last week to offer tributes and tears to their Queen, another faction with heavy hearts filed through the capital’s congestion. The group of supporters marching with the family of Chris Kaba, who was shot dead by armed police in south London on 5 September, was so large that a Sky News reporter broadcasting live mistook them for royal mourners. An embarrassing - and perhaps telling - mistake from a media so often accused of ignoring or misinterpreting the stories that matter most to black and brown communities. Chris Kaba, 24, who was engaged and due to become a father, was killed by a single shot fired by a Met police officer after a car chase in Streatham. The vehicle he was driving was flagged by a number plate recognition camera linking it to an earlier firearms incident. It has since emerged that the car was not registered to Kaba, but to someone else. In other words, this was a young, unarmed black man killed by someone paid to protect the public. Kaba’s family understandably want answers. In a statement, they said: ‘if Chris had not been black, he would have been arrested and not had his life cut short’. The police officer who shot him has been suspended.

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