A Metropolitan Police firearms officer may have been “angry, frustrated and annoyed” when he shot Chris Kaba in the head through the windscreen of a car, a court has heard.
The Old Bailey heard it was “not necessary” for operational firearms commander Martyn Blake to fire his gun after police had boxed in the 24-year-old driver.
Mr Blake, 40, denies murdering Mr Kaba during a police stop in Streatham, south London, on 5 September 2022.
Opening the murder trial on Wednesday, prosecutor Tom Little KC told the jury there is “unassailable evidence” which reveals the shooting was “not reasonably justified or justifiable”.
“For a firearms officer to shoot and kill it should, understandably, be a remedy of last resort,” he told the court.
“The body-worn footage … and footage from cameras on police vehicles … reveals, we say, that it was not necessary to shoot.
“The immediate risk to both the defendant and his fellow officers at the scene did not, we say, justify at the point when the trigger was pulled – it didn’t justify firing a bullet into the vehicle that Chris Kaba was driving.”
The jury heard Mr Blake did not know who Mr Kaba was when he shot him, as members were urged to consider whether he was “angry, frustrated and annoyed” at the driver’s failure to obey his commands for him to stop the car.
Police had followed the Audi Q8 because its registration plate had been linked to an incident in Brixton the previous night in which police received reports of gunshots and a man with a shotgun, the court heard.
As a result, a firearms marker had been placed on the number plate of the car Mr Kaba was driving and police made the decision to stop it with armed officers.
In a computer-generated reconstruction played to the court, jurors were told that Mr Kaba had tried to evade a police car blocking his path in front – hitting it and a parked car nearby – before reversing into a police vehicle blocking him at the rear as armed officers surrounded the Audi on foot.
However the Audi was stationary in Kirkstall Gardens and his hands were on the steering wheel when he was shot, causing a catastrophic traumatic brain injury, the court heard.
Mr Little said at that point there was no imminent risk to the officers who were present on foot.
The prosecutor told the jury that the situation was difficult and challenging, but added: “The reality is that the defendant discharged his firearm at the point that the vehicle that Chris Kaba was in was stationary and when there were no officers directly behind that vehicle, because that vehicle had reversed into another police car, and the prospect of him being able to escape was not obvious.”
Members of Mr Kaba’s family, including his parents, sat in the well of the court as Mr Little laid out the case for the prosecution.
Mr Kaba’s mother Helen Lumuanganu became visibly upset as police dashcam footage of armed officers swarming around the Audi was played in court.
“We say that on careful analysis of all of the evidence, nothing Chris Kaba did in the seconds before he was shot justified this defendant’s decision to shoot,” Mr Little told the jury.
He later added: “Ultimately, we say, on the evidence, there was no real or immediate threat to life of anybody present at the scene and, in particular, at the all-important point in time when the defendant fired the fatal shot.”
Mr Blake, who was formerly referred to as officer NX121, denies murder.
The trial, which is scheduled to last for three weeks, continues.
