“He was the life of the party, you know, everywhere he went, he didn’t shy away from showing people he cared that he cared,” says Jefferson Bosela, describing his cousin Chris Kaba. “He was a big brother, he was a fiance, he was a father-to-be, so he had a lot going for him, which makes this tragedy even worse.”
On September 5, Kaba was driving through Streatham, south London, when the vehicle was flagged by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) before being chased and intercepted by two Metropolitan Police cars.
After carrying out a “controlled stop”, police vehicles pitted at Kaba in Streatham Hill. A single bullet was then fired through the driver’s side windshield and struck Kaba in the head. He died two hours later in hospital. It was later confirmed that Kaba was unarmed and that the car he was driving was not registered to him.
Although the officer involved, who has now been suspended, was initially treated as a witness, the Independent Office for Police Conduct launched a homicide investigation. On Friday evening, the IOPC said it would consider whether race influenced police actions.
Bosela, who has become the family’s spokesperson and spearheaded the Justice for Chris Kaba campaign, maintained that the IOPC Fund’s response to the incident lacked urgency, citing the response from the watchdog to the family’s questions and saying that it is six to The nine-month time frame for the homicide investigation was too long.
“I don’t think the IOPC has necessarily been helpful,” says Bosela. “We asked them very simple questions early on, like if the car was registered to Chris and if they searched it, if there was a gun in the car. And we didn’t find out the answer to those questions until later.”
“We’ve only met face to face twice…Other than that, it’s been on the phone and rarely,” Bosela adds. “We don’t really get regular updates, even though they say they do. A lot of the questions we ask go unanswered, and when they do, the answers are pretty vague. It hasn’t been the best experience for me and my family regarding our relationship with the IOPC.”
On Wednesday, the IOPC confirmed that Kaba’s family would be able to view a police video of the night he was killed, which they will next week. While the watchdog has denied he caved under pressure from both Kaba’s family and the public when he originally launched the homicide investigation, Bosela doesn’t believe that’s the case. “I think if there was no pressure, they would take their time,” adds Bosela. “I think without pressure they wouldn’t have much incentive to do it.”
Deborah Coles, chief executive of Inquest, which has been supporting Kaba’s family, said: “I think the most important thing is that this should be a quick and effective inquest. We cannot tolerate the inordinate delays that have been so familiar in all the other investigations that other families have gone through”.
Bosela recently stepped down from her end-of-year role at a London high school to focus on the campaign.
Protests will be held across the country on Saturday, including in London, Manchester and Cardiff as part of a national day of action. It follows last week’s protests, which included support from public figures including Stormzy and Labor MPs Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Harriet Harman.
Bosela said that although the family’s contact with the Met had been limited, some of the officers had expressed their sympathy for what had happened.
“There have been some officers, when we’ve gone to protest, who have said they’re just as angry as we are and they also want answers and a quick investigation,” says Bosela. “That’s been somewhat reassuring when we’ve heard certain police officers say that.”
There are still many unanswered questions about what happened the night Kaba was killed. The family have said they now want to know if the Met knew it was Kaba driving the car as it was not registered; they want the suspended officer to be interviewed under caution as soon as possible; and they want a charging decision in a few weeks.
But despite the pain and heartbreak the family is experiencing, Bosela said the support they had received had been overwhelmingly positive. “The public support has lifted my spirits,” Bosela said. “It has made us feel appreciated, valued and loved as a family. What more could we ask for, it’s been so surreal. As much as this has been a tragic story, the coexistence and unity and solidarity that has been shown to the family has been beautiful.”
