LONDON — A London police officer who fatally shot a Black motorist two years ago was acquitted Monday of murder in a case that intensified mistrust of Britain’s largest police force among many in the city’s Black communities.
Metropolitan Police marksman Martyn Blake, 40, was cleared by a London jury in the death of Chris Kaba, who was unarmed but was driving a vehicle that had been involved in a shooting a day earlier.
Kaba, 24, was shot in the head after the vehicle was boxed in by two police cars on a narrow residential street in the Streatham Hill neighborhood on Sept. 5, 2022.
Blake fired a single round through the windshield of the Audi because he thought fellow officers’ lives were in danger when Kaba began ramming the police cars in an attempt to break free.
A prosecutor said Blake misjudged the risk to his colleagues, exaggerated the threat in statements after the shooting and aimed for Kaba’s head. Blake denied those assertions.
The shooting renewed racism allegations against the Met police, also known as Scotland Yard, as it had been trying to restore confidence following a series of scandals and an independent review that found it mired in sexism, homophobia and institutional racism.
The rare decision to prosecute Blake, who had been suspended, created a backlash from some of his specially trained firearms colleagues who refused to carry their weapons in a show of solidarity. The Met was briefly forced to call on neighboring departments and the military for backup.
Fatal shootings by police in the U.K. are rare. In the year to March 2023, officers in England and Wales who are authorized to carry a gun fired their weapons at people 10 times and killed three, according to official statistics.
Prosecutions of British officers for murder or manslaughter for actions performed on duty are exceptionally rare.
Jurors in London’s Central Criminal Court deliberated for about three hours before finding Blake not guilty.
Blake let out a puff of relief as the verdict was read. Kaba’s family, seated in the courtroom, showed no visible reaction.
The family later said they were devastated and would continue to fight for justice.
“The not guilty verdict leaves us with the deep pain of injustice adding to the unbearable sorrow we have felt since Chris was killed,” the family said in a statement issued by the justice advocacy group Inquest. “Chris was stolen from us, and this decision shows his life — and many others like him — does not matter to the system. Our son deserved better.”
Prosecutors said their thoughts were with the Kaba family, but they respected the jury’s decision.
“We recognize that firearms officers operate under enormous pressure, but it is our responsibility to put cases before a jury that meet our test for prosecution, and we are satisfied that test was met in this case,” Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division said.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said Blake paid “a huge personal and professional sacrifice” for “a split-second decision on what he believed was necessary to protect his colleagues and to protect London.”
Defense lawyer Patrick Gibbs said during his closing argument that Blake was not a “RoboCop with total vision and nanosecond reactions like a computer.”
“He is not a robot, he is a human being with a human brain who did this to the best of his ability,” Gibbs said.
Another firearms officer said he would have taken the shot if Blake had not and another said he was fractions of a second from pulling the trigger.