Conservative leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick has said London “is a safer place” without Chris Kaba and he wants to raise the threshold for prosecuting firearms officers.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on Wednesday firearms officers on trial over police shootings will remain anonymous during criminal proceedings.
She also ordered a review into the accountability of firearms officers – and confidence in policing – after police marksman Martyn Blake was cleared by a jury on Monday of the murder of Chris Kaba in south London in 2022.
Mr Jenrick, who is competing with Kemi Badenoch to be Tory leader, said he welcomed Ms Cooper’s announcement but would “like to go further”.
He told Sky News: “I’d like to see that the bar for criminal prosecutions for firearms officers be raised significantly because… they do an extremely challenging job.
“There are relatively few people who are willing to come forward and do that job today, and those that do should not be worried that when they make those split-second decisions, they’ll then get dragged through the mud and through the courts as a result.”
Mr Blake’s barrister described Kaba as the “principal gunman” of the Brixton Hill-based 67 gang, which has more than 50 known members.
Mr Jenrick said: “London is a safer place without this man.”
He criticised the Mayor of London and accused Mr Khan of “mourning Chris Kaba”, adding: “That’s another misjudgement by Sadiq Khan.”
In a statement released on Monday, the London mayor said: “I understand the impact Chris Kaba’s death has had on London’s communities and the anger, pain and fear it has caused.
“I send my heartfelt sympathies to Chris Kaba’s family, friends and the wider community once again.
“There’s clearly still a wider lack of trust in the police, particularly within the Black community, that needs to be addressed.”
Mr Jenrick continued: “Nobody should mourn the death of this individual.
“What Sadiq Khan should be doing, given that he has responsibility for the police in this city, is getting behind good police officers like Sergeant Blake, backing them to the hilt and making sure they can get on with their lives and their service to our country.”
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Chris Kaba was core member of gang
As well as disagreeing with Mr Khan, Mr Jenrick criticised rapper Wretch 32, who said he believed Kaba had been “assassinated” and that he did not think “justice had been done”.
He told Sky News: “The police, they’re good at villainising a person and turning people against a person and then using that to feel like they can go into any scenario and execute a person without any repercussions.”
Responding to the rapper’s comments live on air, Mr Jenrick said: “Chris Kaba was on a one-man crime spree. He was stabbing. He was shooting. He was committing criminality on our streets.
“London is a safer place without this man and Sergeant Blake is a hero.”
After Mr Blake was cleared, reporting restrictions were lifted to reveal Kaba was a core member of a notorious south London gang and was accused of shooting a rival in a nightclub days before he was killed.
The 24-year-old, whose street name was “Itch”, arrived at the nightclub in the same Audi Q8 he was driving on the night he was shot, and it was used as a getaway car the night before his death after three masked men fired a shotgun twice outside a Brixton school.
The car was also linked to a shooting in southeast London the year before.
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Chris Kaba linked to gang violence
Kaba was due to face a civil court hearing 10 days after his death, where police would make an application for a gang injunction, which is used to place restrictions on people involved in gang violence.
He had previously been the subject of an interim version of the order, but it had elapsed while he was in prison for other convictions.
Conservative members are voting to elect the party’s new leader – with Mr Jenrick and Ms Badenoch the final two candidates. The winner will be announced on 2 November.
