Hundreds of London’s Metropolitan police officers temporarily turned in their firearms in September after the Crown Prosecution Service charged an officer with the murder of unarmed 24-year-old Chris Kaba. Up to 300 of the force’s 2,500 armed officers stepped back from their duties, leading the Met to request backup support from the army. Met commissioner Mark Rowley suggested that officers were concerned about having “sufficient legal protection to enable them to do their job.”
Police shootings are rare, and rarer still are prosecutions. There have been only a handful of murder and manslaughter charges for officers following deaths in police custody, and just one has led to a successful prosecution.
