I mean, it takes a lot to get armed officers out in the UK, they don’t just all carry. This cas will determine if he acted proportionally to the threat or not.
It’s actually the correct way to write a headline, but it definitely feels weird.
The man was shot dead, as in, not shot and injured.
You learn to format titles a certain way in school, as to keep them short and to the point. Sometimes they can be read multiple ways, though, but it’s not wrong.
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).
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.
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.
No it hasn't, but there are some police there with guns that are only supposed to be used as a last resort. Sounds like the shooter was one of those, but went a bit crazy:
5% of police in this country carry firearms. The car the victim was in was reported to be involved in a recent crime involving firearms. The car was seen by cameras which flagged it. The car was approached by firearm carrying officers, at least one officer fatally shot the occupant.
Did you read the comments? I still don’t understand your Europe=US with gun violence take.
Edit: this has all been explained in the comment chain of your parent comment. You’re a bad faith actor troll or a moron, I regret wasting time on this.
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.
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.
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
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.
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”
yeah I think you’re right, with that kind of extra detail I wouldn’t have been confused. even the article itself didn’t make it clear what the context could have been, it sounded like they were casually driving and the officer just blindfired into his car for no other reason than “criminal bad” y’know? the fact that the man was about to ram through a roadblock or that the family gave up their protest after seeing the footage should have been front and center
There are still many unknown details about Chris Kaba’s death. What we do know is that on 5 September, Kaba was driving through south London when an automatic number plate recognition camera flagged the car he was in as recently being linked to a firearms incident. The IOPC has said that the car was not registered under Kaba’s name.
Police officers then pursued Kaba, eventually performing a “controlled stop” – two police vehicles collided with his car, cornering him in Streatham Hill. A specialist firearms officer then fired a single shot at the driver’s side through the windscreen, hitting Kaba in the back of the head. He was taken to hospital, where he died two hours later. According to Kaba’s family, they were not told of his death for 11 hours.
After a thorough search of the car Kaba was driving, the IOPC reported that no firearm was found
I’d love to know what “recently linked to a firearms incident” actually means, especially given that it seems to have been flagged by an automated system and that “firearms incident” was seen as justification to ram a car off the road and then shoot the occupant in the back before any actual threat was verified.
Comment above cites more ofbthe article claiming he was trying to ram through a roadblock, and his family took a step back from public protests after they were shown footage of the incident
The article, where they say the cops rammed him off the road, that he was shot in the back of the head and that the subsequent investigation found no weapons
Yeah I looked around. It still needs the trial to be completed first.
Did the guy do something silly that made the policeman shoot, is an unanswered question.
What was the criteria for releasing the shot would be the second question. The CPS will not prosecute without a fair chance at conviction, but innocent until proven and all that.
You could also be asking what was he doing in a car with the history it had, but that should not be justification to kill someone. I would not wish for the UK to follow in the US footsteps of frivolous shootings.
Did the guy do something silly that made the policeman shoot, is an unanswered question.
I saw this in the Wikipedia article
But witnesses claimed the driver ignored police requests to give himself up and when he attempted to ram his way out of the roadblock, officers opened fire.
At around 10.07pm, Kaba made a left turn from New Park Road onto Kirkstall Gardens.[5] A marked armed response vehicle was waiting on this road.[5] Police vehicles boxed the car in, and witnesses claimed that Kaba ignored repeated orders to get out of the vehicle, and was trying to ram the Audi through the roadblock.[6] Armed officers exited their vehicles then approached the Audi on foot.[5] According to the IOPC, a police officer fired a single round at Kaba through the car’s windscreen, striking him.[5][6] He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died of his injuries just after 12:00 am the following day.[7]
Also I found this really interesting
On 21 September the family of the deceased viewed the police body-worn camera footage of the incident. Having seen it, Kaba’s cousin said that they would be taking a step back in their protest about the death.
The original BBC article words it a bit differently
Afterwards, Mr Kaba’s cousin Jefferson Bosela repeated Ms Nkama’s comments, saying the family now wants “justice” but that they would now be taking a “step back” after some initial campaigning following Mr Kaba’s death.
Ha ha very funny. Except this is grammatically correct and not ambiguous. It would work with your joke interpretation if it said “who shot dead, unarmed, black man”
I disagree that this is unambiguous, I was also confused reading this headline. It’s odd wording. It may be technically correct but that doesn’t mean it’s unambiguous.
“Dead” and “unarmed” are adjectives and if they were being used like you thought, they should have a comma between them. I agree that it’s potentially vague, but if you read it in your BBC broadcaster voice it should help
It’s ambiguous. Adjectives don’t need a comma like that, especially when there are two. You don’t say “look at that small, red, fire hydrant”, you just say “look at that small red fire hydrant” (and technically, you could call “fire” an adjective there too).
Or "shot dead an unarmed black man". Three additional characters would have fixed this. I've long been frustrated by the journalistic style of removing every possible word from headlines. We're no longer reading these things printed on dead trees, there's no extra ink being spent or space wasted.
Many apps or websites cut titles off, though. It’s important to keep them short.
I wish more people followed proper journalistic formats. Frustrates me when the first sentence is supposed to have everything you need to know - who, what, where, when, why, how - but instead these gen Z journalists think they should bury the details 5 paragraphs deep.
The proper way to write an article is to give the reader everything they need to know from the first sentence, and then expand in detail with each following paragraph, from most important to least.
Quick tip - if the majority of people who read something find it ambiguous, it is. Plain and simple - especially for languages like English that don’t have a central authority for setting language rules.
It’s written by a British person in OG English. This phrase isn’t unambiguous here and it took me a sec to figure out why people were confused. It’s just a syntax difference but surely you can figure it out with context clues, just like I did with your interpretation.
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