Selective Outrage: Why Some Police Shootings Matter More Than Others

Does anyone remember the death of Tony Keeble? How about David Joyce, or maybe Giedrius Vasiljevas? These men were all shot dead by the police in the United Kingdom in the last three years, but I would imagine that very few people will recall them because they were white.

Contrast those with the police shooting of career gangster Chris Kaba in 2022, where selective media and ‘community’ outrage dressed up as public conscience led to a Metropolitan Police firearms officer being tried for murder. Kaba was shot in Streatham, South London, in September 2022 after he had driven towards armed officers whilst trying to ram his way out of a police roadblock. He had been stopped as part of a pre-planned operation – called a ‘hard stop’ – as he was known on intelligence databases to be a habitual carrier of firearms.

The copper who fired the fatal shot, publicly named as Sergeant Martyn Blake (despite concerns for his safety), was subsequently acquitted of murdering Kaba by a jury at the Old Bailey in October 2024, after just three hours of deliberation. However, he had still been left facing allegations of breaching professional standards and the possibility of a gross misconduct hearing that could have ended his career. But following a review of rules governing the police use of force and their retrospective application this week, it now looks as though that disciplinary case against Sgt. Blake will be withdrawn. Police regulations seem to have finally caught up with common sense.

But why do we remember the likes of the Chris Kaba case or, indeed, that of Mark Duggan, but not others? The answer lies, predictably, in the politics of race and the wholesale importation of American ‘anti-racist‘ culture into the United Kingdom. This has led to the bizarre sight of protesters in London shouting “Hands up, don’t shoot!” at police officers armed with nothing more dangerous than some pepper spray and a stick.

The rhetoric of some self-appointed community groups can be corrosive. Genuine concern after a death involving the police is both legitimate and necessary. Families deserve answers and the public deserves transparency. But there is a world of difference between demanding accountability and pursuing a racially based anti-police narrative that treats an armed officer as being guilty from the outset. Too often, the language of ‘community justice’ appears to leave no room for the possibility that an officer acted lawfully and honestly.

Firearms officers are also under terrifying pressure, because they know full well that a lengthy investigation will automatically follow a discharge of their weapon. Their uniform and firearm will be seized and forensically examined, they will be suspended and they will feel very much alone. Their loved ones will be placed under immense strain for a protracted period and, if all that isn’t enough, they may have to face a criminal trial at the end of it.

Activists seem far quicker to issue statements condemning police action than to acknowledge the circumstances that brought armed officers to the scene in the first place. They speak fervently about the trauma of policing but far less often about the trauma inflicted by violent offenders, the terror of the victims who call for help, or the impossible burden carried by the officers who answer those calls. Certainly, the Kaba family sought to stop the release of footage showing their boy marauding through a nightclub with a gun and shooting a man in the days before his death.

There is also a significant democratic problem when self-appointed spokespeople claim to speak for ‘the community’ while advancing their own narrow political agendas. Communities aren’t monoliths. I know from experience that most law-abiding residents in high-crime areas want, regardless of their ethnic background, more effective policing, not less. They want police to arrive quickly, confront dangerous people decisively and keep the streets safe for their families. Their voices are too often drowned out by activists who treat policing itself as the enemy, rather than asking how it can be made fair and effective.

This matters because the pressure they generate and diffuse doesn’t remain confined to press releases and placards. It seeps into politics, management and oversight. Senior officers are reluctant to defend their own people, lest it damage their own promotion prospects – especially if race is a factor. Ministers speak the language of confidence while allowing systems to grow ever more punitive. The result is a culture in which officers may be judged less by the evidence than by the volume of performative outrage surrounding the case.

Worst of all, this approach can deepen the very mistrust it claims to heal. If every police use of force is immediately framed as proof of institutional prejudice, no verdict, investigation or factual finding will ever be enough. Acquittal becomes irrelevant, context becomes an excuse and evidence becomes secondary to the ideological narrative. That isn’t justice for families or accountability for the police. It is permanent grievance politics, and it leaves the public with a distorted picture of what armed officers actually face.

This is the impossible position into which the state places its firearms officers. They are asked to volunteer for one of the most dangerous roles in policing, to run towards armed criminals and life-threatening situations, and to make decisions in fractions of a second that others will later spend years dissecting in offices, courtrooms and inquiry rooms. If they hesitate, members of the public or their fellow officers may die. If they act, they risk prosecution, public exposure, disciplinary proceedings and professional ruin.

The figures underline how rare it is for armed police to fire, even though they are sent repeatedly into situations where others may be armed, violent or otherwise dangerous. In the year to March 2025, there were 17,249 police firearms operations in England and Wales, yet police firearms were discharged in only four incidents. There were 6,367 authorised firearms officers, of whom 5,753 were operationally deployable. These are not trigger-happy figures, and this is not the United States – despite some community leaders acting like it is. The evidence reveals a small cadre of officers, repeatedly put in high-risk encounters, who almost always resolve them without firing a shot.

Nobody is arguing that armed police should be above scrutiny. The power to use lethal force must always be subject to searching examination. But scrutiny is not the same as suspicion by ideological default. A system that treats every shooting as a potential career-ending offence, even after a criminal acquittal, risks creating precisely the paralysis that the public can’t afford when the prospect of lethal danger is immediate.

The cost of that suspicion isn’t borne by lobbyists or professional campaigners in the anti-racism industry. It is borne by the armed cop at the scene and by the public who expect police to intervene when violent people threaten others. When more than 100 Met firearms officers reportedly stepped back from armed duties after the murder charge in the Kaba case, they weren’t merely grandstanding. If armed officers conclude that their careers, liberty, anonymity and family safety are at risk simply for making a good-faith decision under colossal tension, some will step back from the role and others will hesitate when hesitation is deadly.

That wouldn’t serve justice and it wouldn’t serve the communities most often threatened by armed criminals – the very communities on behalf of which the bad actors claim to speak.

Paul Birch is a former police officer and counter-terrorism specialist. You can read his Substack here.