Chris Kaba: Playing the Victim

(Photograph: Alisdare Hickson, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Chris Kaba, 24, was shot dead by the Metropolitan Police back in September 2022, following a police chase which ended with him attempting to ram his way through a roadblock in an Audi Q8. As reported previously, the firearms officer, Martyn Blake (originally identified as NX121), was accused of shooting without justification, and charged with Kaba’s murder. During the trial, it was revealed that Kaba had been boxed in by police cars and drove backwards and forwards in an attempt to escape. Blake was convinced that one of his colleagues would be killed. Other officers involved confirmed that they would have taken the shot if Blake had not, and that they were “fractions of a second away from doing so.” It took less than three hours for the Old Bailey jury to finally acquit Blake earlier this week, and the resulting concatenation of events pretty much sums up the farce that serves as British justice.

Let’s step back and remind ourselves how Kaba’s death was presented at the time. For a broad spectrum of activists, grievance-mongers, and politicians, Kaba was the reincarnation of George Floyd: an opportunity to commercialise the death of another young black man, tragically ‘stolen’ from us by the clutches of police brutality. The usual accolades were forthcoming: we were told that Kaba was a father-to-be, “a much-loved son,” whose music had been nominated for a MOBO award (Music of Black Origin). He was apparently funny, loyal, and a football fan, who lit up the room at parties.

Flocking to bolster the narrative of police racism were the usual suspects, eager to sow the seeds of division, and to align themselves with anything other than the rule of law. London mayor, Sadiq Khan, tweeted the following:

The Runnymede Trust, the UK’s leading independent race equality think tank came up with this:

Former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, offered the following response:

And Labour MP for Streatham (where Kaba was shot dead), Bell Ribeiro-Addy, felt this struck the right chord:

However, the narrative of victimhood on the part of Kaba was all (rather predictably) a lie. Following the acquittal of Officer Blake, Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner, Stuart Cundy, concerned about the possibility of civil unrest, wrote to Judge Goss requesting that reporting restrictions be lifted, so that the public would no longer be kept in the dark about Kaba’s background. Goss acquiesced, and the resulting rap sheet has not only embarrassed those sporting the victim narrative, but it is actually so long I can only give you the condensed version. Like George Floyd, Chris Kaba is among the least-deserving candidates for canonisation in history, although Kaba makes Floyd look like a boy scout:

• With spells in prison up until April 2022, Kaba was first convicted at the tender age of 13—thanks to turning up to a street fight armed with a large kitchen knife, for which he was given a youth referral order.
• Months later, he was convicted of wounding with intent and remanded in a young offenders’ institution for two years.
• At just 15, Kaba took part in the stabbing of a rival in a phone shop.
• At a party in Canning Town, Kaba fired a sawn-off shotgun which earned him another four years.
• According to police, Kaba was one of London’s “most feared gangsters,” and a “core member” of the notorious 67 gang. When the mob was not busy making music videos, they entertained themselves with blackmail, extortion, running the home counties drug networks, and were involved with stabbings, shootings, and murders.
• Kaba’s rap alter ego was Mad Itch, where he would soliloquise about selling drugs, knifing, and shooting gang rivals.
• Kaba was directly involved in the shooting of Brandon Malutshi just days before his death; first in a nightclub, and then outside for good measure.
• His car was linked to a firearms incident the previous day, which was why it was flagged to the police officers who attempted to arrest him.
• To top it off, it was also reported that the mother of Kaba’s (then) unborn child had already been granted a domestic violence protection order against him.

“Much-loved son” indeed.

The question we must ask ourselves here (and more importantly demand of the authorities) is “why?” Just like the case of the Southport murderer, why isn’t the public ever trusted with the details of a criminal who doesn’t conveniently turn out to be a working-class, white man?

In Kaba’s case, we do at least have access to some pieces of the puzzle. In the first instance, the family fought tooth and nail to gag the press, claiming that “if details of his [Kaba’s] gang connections and gun violence were known, it could prejudice future proceedings.” Yeah, you think?! In terms of the trial, Kaba’s past was also withheld on the basis that it was “irrelevant to Blake’s guilt or innocence, and speculation about it potentially prejudicial to the Crown’s case.” This, surely, is a matter of debate, since the officers were aware that the car was linked to firearms offenses, which undoubtedly influenced their assessment of threat?

Whether it was the case that Kaba’s criminal history was also withheld on the grounds that he was black—and that therefore the political, media, and public responses were likely to be hypersensitive—is a matter of speculation. It’s worth noting however, that the same courtesy was not afforded to officer Martyn Blake, whose name was released in January of this year after continued pressure from Kaba’s family. It was argued that there was no immediate threat to Blake’s safety—just an immediate £10,000 bounty on his head, and a living nightmare for him and his family, who fear Kaba’s associates will kill them.

There is an answer to the question poised above, but it’s an unpopular one. ‘Equality,’ or rather equality of outcome, is a festering sore at the heart of Britain. A blind allegiance to that concept guarantees the downfall rather than the success of our nation. If you want the full discussion, you’ll have to read Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West, but the long and short of it is this: to justify the increasingly obvious lie of equality, its proponents are taking increasingly extreme measures. In other words, to force society to comply with an ill-tailored equal distribution (rather than the glorious bell curve), politicians are pushing genuine discrimination:

• Quotas and hiring restrictions that deny the best candidates;
• Grade leniency for certain groups, accompanied by an ‘Asian tax’;
• BAME criminals allowed to ‘hide’ their convictions;
• The demand for trillions in ‘reparations’;
• And an obvious ‘two-tier’ society.

With the fallout of the Chris Kaba case, the only corollary I can see is this:

1. White police officers are not allowed to shoot black criminals under any circumstances (there is already evidence that white officers are more hesitant to shoot non-whites);
2. White victims of non-white criminals, effectively have no recourse to justice. Just ask Peter Lynch, or the grooming gang victims told to “lie back and think of diversity”;
3. In sum, it’s a criminal amnesty in all but name—as observed at the Notting Hill Carnival, during pro-Palestine demonstrations, and at Black Lives Matter riots—where the police commend themselves for the “courageous decision” to not intervene.

The most extraordinary aspect of the Kaba case however, is the fact that even postpublication of Kaba’s criminal history, many on the Left are refusing to lay down the victim card. The BBC has claimed that ‘black communities’ have been left “traumatised,” despite providing no evidence whatsoever.

Labour MPs are still eulogising Kaba’s death:

And Mayor Khan had the incredible gall to post the following:

Whether these actors genuinely hold the views they espouse, or merely recognise the ease with which they can make political capital from them, is a question only they can answer. But the truth of the matter is hard to ignore: equality before the law is not only desirable, it’s crucial. But equality of outcome ain’t gonna happen in a free society. People are not the same. You can argue about the reasons why, but as long as individuals and groups refuse to commit crime at the same rate, politicians, media, and left-wing activists are going to have to choose: either openly demand carte blanche for non-whites or accept that people are responsible for their own actions. That includes criminals, even black ones.

Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West, and writes a Substack here.

This piece was first published in The European Conservative, and is reproduced by kind permission.

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