On London Extra: Police special

The Kaba case, a new policing deputy and latest knife crime stats. Also, Soho lobbies Sadiq, don't say "gentrification", Kemi versus Bobby and fun stuff about Blythe House

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Look at it this way:

A Met police officer who shot dead an unarmed black man he knew nothing about has been found not guilty of murder. This proves that black people in London (and everywhere else in Britain) cannot expect to get justice from the law and had the dead man been white he wouldn't have been shot dead by a cop in the first place. Anyone now saying Met officers should have less reason to fear the consequences of shooting people is putting black lives at greater risk and reducing still further the confidence black Londoners have in the Met.

Or, look at it this way:

A jury has found a Met police officer not guilty of murdering a man he shot dead after the man refused to step out of a car connected with a violent crime committed elsewhere in London the previous night and instead used the car as a battering ram in an attempt to escape from Met officers telling him to step out of it. Anyone claiming that his death and the criminal justice system's handling of it has given black Londoners as a whole more reason to mistrust the police and the law does not speak for most black Londoners.

Which description of the outcome and implications of the trial of Martyn Blake, the Met officer who shot dead Chris Kaba in September 2022, do you think the more accurate? And here's a different question: which description do you prefer? 

Both have been aired in the wake of the trial verdict, reached on Monday. Each expresses a view consistent with one or other of the most sharply opposed opinions expressed about the Kaba case. Both appeal to strong emotions that can feed and feed off prejudice. That is why neither can fully explain either what actually happened or should happen next.

Let's set aside what was disclosed about Kaba after the court proceedings were complete - that he was a hardcore violent gangster and a far cry from the fun-loving aspiring architect anticipating fatherhood he was depicted as in the more credulous portrayals of him that followed his death. Feeling free to say in hindsight "good riddance" is not the point.

Instead, let's consider some context. The claim that Kaba would not have been shot dead had he been white, though not really borne out by the stats, will nonetheless surely strike a chord with many impeccably law-abiding black Londoners who loathe and fear violent criminals: the belief that black lives matter less to the Met goes back many decades (to the case of Colin Roach, for example). 

Also, there has also long been suspicion that armed Met officers who kill will always get off more lightly than other people would, including if the victim is white (see the case of Harry Stanley). The same goes for officers who hit people with batons (the more recent case of Ian Tomlinson).

Yet Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has repeated his call, previously made in a letter to the then Home Secretary over a year ago, for changes in the way officers who use force are held to account for it.