Earlier this week, the police officer who shot and killed Chris Kaba was cleared of murder charges. For those unfamiliar with the incident: On September 5th 2022, Kaba was driving a vehicle that was linked to a shooting incident the day before, and was being followed by police. His car was stopped at a police road block and he was ordered to exit the vehicle. Kaba refused to do so, ramming two police cars in an attempt to escape. He was then shot dead by police officer Martyn Blake.
When the judge in the Kaba case finally lifted reporting restrictions yesterday, it was revealed that Kaba was a member of a notorious drug gang, and that he had shot another man in a nightclub the day before his death. However, neither these revelations nor the acquittal of officer Blake (by a unanimous verdict) has stopped Left-wing activists from blaming Kaba’s death on “racism”.
In relation to the incident, the Runnymede Trust posted a tweet claiming, “The legal system doesn’t deliver real justice for families bereaved by racist state violence” and “this lack of police accountability perpetuates cycles of violence and impunity.”
Likewise, the website Counterfire published an article claiming that “the reality of institutional racism is laid bare” and “this case is a reminder of the structural and institutional racism in this country”.
Even the supposedly respectable Guardian published an editorial noting that “since 2005, the Met has shot and killed four unarmed men in non-terrorist operations. All were Black”. The editorial went on to quote a report by Inquest, which referred to “deeply rooted patterns of racial disproportionality resulting in deaths after the lethal use of force”.
The problem with claims of “racist state violence”, “institutional racism” and “racial disproportionality” is that they don’t stand up to scrutiny.
To begin with, “killings of unarmed men in non-terrorist operations” is a rather arbitrary category. Why exclude terrorist operations? In any case, four data points isn’t much evidence to build a case on. And doesn’t the fact that only four unarmed men have been killed in almost 20 years suggest a remarkable degree of restraint on the part of the Met?
According to the Washington Post, 516 unarmed men have been killed by U.S. police since 2015. Adjusting for population (of the U.S. versus Greater London) and number of years (nine versus 19), this means the rate at which unarmed men are killed by police is more than seven times higher in the U.S. than it is in Greater London.
As a matter of fact, the overrepresentation of black people among the victims of police killings can be entirely explained by their higher rates of involvement in violent crime.
The Inquest report quoted by the Guardian found that, from 2012-13 to 2020-21, there were 119 deaths “in or following policy custody” or “following police contact”, and that 23 of the victims, or 19%, were black. Since black people are only 4% of the population (less if you average over the relevant time period), they are substantially overrepresented. If you use homicides as a benchmark, however, they aren’t overrepresented. From 2014 to 2020, black people comprised 18% of homicide suspects.
Homicides is clearly a more appropriate benchmark than population. Around 90% of the victims of police killings are men. Yet we don’t attribute their overrepresentation to “sexism” because we know that men commit the vast majority of violent crime and hence are much more likely to get into situations where a police officer ends up killing them.
The verdict in the trial of officer Blake suggests that Kaba was killed in lawful self-defence. And there’s no evidence that police are disproportionately killing black people due to racism.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I’m afraid facts and arguments aren’t going to change the minds of Net Zero advocates.
What will change their minds is the sense that those who don’t want it are getting angry and might start going for Net Zero zealots in ways they might not like.
They need to feel the need to change position at an emotional level. And we all know fear works best.
Personally I make a point of ensuring that anyone who defends climate change policy perceives my anger and a certain sense of menace that I’m not standing for it.
That’s the sort of emotional response that gets people re-thinking, in my view.
Indeed. Righteous anger coupled with a couple of winters freezing in one’s home and – heaven forbid – being deprived of the internet and one’s dumb-down-the-owner ‘smart’ phone (due to power blackouts) and we will probably see some change in direction. Recent history shows how quickly zealots can change sides – 2 years ago there were millions standing in line for untested poison, now they can’t give it away. Reality bites big.
Yep everyone wants to “save the planet” till the penny eventually drops that the planet is fine and it was never about the planet in the first place.
We see the same tactics used against those who put rational arguments and science up against the loony climate change protagonists.
The loonies are not loony and those with rational arguments and science are the loonies.
All achieved using the same approach to so many other issues that are destroying our social values and structures and done using
useful idiotswhatever activists they can fund to implement this madness.The end justifies the means for those behind all this crap who see the destruction of social values and structures as the ends which justify the means.
DS is invaluable as a source of information and a forum to read what sensible people have to say against this backdrop of madness.
Or “never let a good crisis go to waste”, and parasite governments of both parties are certainly putting the manufactured climate crisis to good use to implement all the progressive policies they have long craved
No facts and reason……Just faith and emotion. Climate activists and those who glue themselves to things decided long ago what is true and there is no budging them. But we need to remember it is government and their phony climate models masquerading as science that brainwashed them all. —–Thos governments can hardly come down hard on their own useful idiots that do all their dirty work for them now can they?
Until the liberal mainstream media, and especially the BBC, do honest reporting over the utter folly of spending trillions on completely worthless and highly dangerous Net Zero madness nothing will change.
I would suggest that everyone complain to the BBC via. their Make A Complaint web portal. Find a climate change article on the BBC website, it’ll almost always state that greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause of climate change, something that we all know is complete rubbish. They always make this dumb statement without any dissenting views allowed. That’s complaint-worthy in itself.
Do you really think complaining to the BBC achieves anything? It is impervious to complaints.
Hopefully one low level individual there might start to think for him/her self and light a spark. A long shot, I know.
At a stroke, we could cut the staggering 0.0016% of the atmosphere that is human-caused CO2 by wiping out most of the world’s population by toxic medical interventions, geoengineering, gmo food and electrosmog. Unless some people have already thought of that.
Just as a matter of interest – have any of the Net Zero zealots ever clarified what’s the target internal winter temperature people are expected to maintain in this brave new world of theirs, or hasn’t that sort of practical reality crossed their tiny minds? I see the WHO, NHS and others currently recommend 18-21C, and building ‘sperts recommend above 16C to stop condensation and mould. Are those numbers likely to drop, I wonder? (My place regularly drops well below those already; wonder if that means I get extra brownie points?!)
Off topic, but who cares..
So.. 2.30 pm tomorrow Andrew Bridgen after 20 refusals and the pressure of constitutants harassing their MPs there will be a debate (1 hr slot) about excess deaths.
Its the first parliamentary debate in the world… You couldn’t make this up in your widest of dreams..
https://youtu.be/uWP6mGiDveI?si=sYVcJHZC-SLCDsYQ
More off topic…. Was all this about provoking Iran..
Brand talking sense… Yet again (don’t believe the narrative about him, it’s an attempted matrix takedown)
https://youtu.be/jWO-mtt4_lU?si=vUDuZ1TDB4O-iFMW
”Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you,”
This is a momentous nightmare social experiment, the current technology cannot deliver, the current resources are inadequate. As this nonsense progresses and it becomes increasingly obvious that our current population cannot go ‘net-zero’ and live at anything like present living standards, what is going to happen? Are people meekly going to accept immiseration and a degeneration of living standards back to medieval times? If we do go down this route the UK will become a weird basket case like the mad uncle you keep in the attic while the rest of the world gets on with life. This is a recipe for huge social upheaval and turmoil, the end result of which is hard to predict?
Something similar to North Korea, I expect. Only without the abundant luxuries…
‘Saving the planet’ is worth any cost in some eyes. Even if you can’t afford it, and it wouldn’t save the planet anyway, (primarily because it doesn’t need saving from CO2).
Useless people trying to give themselves a sense of destiny.
The NIC should be closed down and sent back to school while we find some adults to carry on the essential work.
The can will need to be continually kicked down the road because what the parasite political class are trying to do is not just impossible, it is unaffordable, but the pain and suffering inflicted will be a severe blow to hard pressed taxpayers suffering the fallout from the malady infecting all of parliament called PSPS (Pretend to Save the Planet Syndrome)