Chris Kaba’s family have called for the video footage of his final moments to be shown to them after the Metropolitan Police announced that the firearms officer who fatally shot him had been suspended.
Jefferson Bosela, Mr Kaba’s cousin, said the family would like to see bodycam and aerial footage of the incident, and would like to know how long the IOPC investigation will take to complete.
Mr Kaba, 24, who had been due to become a father, was killed while unarmed on September 5 following a police pursuit which ended in Streatham Hill, south London.
The Audi he was driving was hemmed in by two police vehicles in Kirkstall Gardens, a narrow residential street, and one round was fired from a police weapon.
At the vigil, his mother was saying, “Chris, what were you saying in your last minutes? I wish I had just one minute with you, speak to me please'. It was heartbreaking— Jefferson Bosela, Chris Kaba's cousin
Mr Bosela said: “We want the footage to be shown to the family to have a clear understanding of what happened.
“We want a timeline of how long the investigation will take because the IOPC are renowned for having very lengthy investigations. We want it to be swift, we want it to be effective and we want it to be thorough.
“We won’t be waiting years for this. We want justice as soon as we can.”
The car Mr Kaba was driving was flagged up on automatic number plate recognition but it later emerged that the vehicle was not registered to him.
Mr Bosela said the family want to know if police “knew he was in the car or were they just following the vehicle? They haven’t given us a definitive answer”.
The family were informed of the suspension while they were holding a vigil for Mr Kaba at Kirkstall Gardens on Monday night.
Mr Bosela said: “We welcomed the news but it happened a little bit too late. The second there’s a criminal investigation, you need to suspend the officer. In any other job, you would be suspended immediately.
“I don’t know why police officers still get the luxury of working even though they’re under a criminal investigation.”
Monday night’s vigil was the first time that Mr Kaba’s mother, Helen Nkama, had been at the scene of his death.
Mr Bosela said: “Chris’s parents are suffering an unimaginable loss. The nature in which he died makes it really harsh and so difficult. They’re so strong but they’re struggling.
“At the vigil, his mother was saying, “Chris, what were you saying in your last minutes? I wish I had just one minute with you, speak to me please’. It was heartbreaking.
“Personally, I haven’t been eating. I’ve lost so much weight. I’m grieving when I can but my focus right now is fighting for justice.”
He added that the police’s actions have reinforced a lack of trust in them: “The trust was never there anyway. (The relationship) is already damaged and broken. It’s reaffirmed how it felt: that the trust is gone.”
Mr Bosela has set up a GoFundMe and an Instagram account, @JusticeForChrisKaba, for the family’s campaign.
The GoFundMe has already raised £20,000 of its £50,000 goal.
