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Martyn Blake, a Metropolitan Police firearms officer, has expressed his deep regret for the distress that the family of Chris Kaba, the 24-year-old unarmed man he shot and killed, have experienced. Despite insisting that his actions were lawful, proportionate and necessary, Blake asserts his remorse for taking another person’s life and can empathize with the family’s grief.
During the trial at the Old Bailey, the court heard a detailed account of Blake’s actions to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) after the killing. According to Blake, the operation during which Kaba was shot was extremely dangerous and violent, with the events lasting only a few seconds. Blake believed his colleagues were in grave danger of being killed or crushed by the Audi Kaba was driving.
The vehicle had been linked to a shooting the previous night in Brixton, south London, and the firearm used had not been recovered. Blake was a qualified tactical advisor and operation firearms commander at the time of Kaba’s shooting, and had been navigating in one of the marked police cars. The operation was fast-moving and dynamic, and Blake feared for the lives of his colleagues as Kaba began using his car as a weapon.
In his statement to the IOPC, Blake claims that Kaba rammed the police car “purposefully and intentionally” and showed no regard for his life or the lives of the officers. Blake believed he would have been killed if he had not exercised a tactical option to incapacitate the driver. The prosecution, however, claims that Blake acted out of anger and frustration and that the shooting was unnecessary. The trial continues
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