Since the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, Great Britain seems to have come to a standstill. London is still flooded with people coming to pay their respects, laying millions of flowers at makeshift altars, and underground stations remain closed for security reasons. But in the suburbs of the city, where most of the diaspora from the former colonies of the British Empire live in London, her death has brought renewed attention to the colonial legacy of the monarch.
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For many, it is impossible to disassociate the Queen from England’s colonial legacy, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade that led to the enslavement of more than ten million people and the rise of racial capitalism, which continues to benefit the British Crown to this day.
It was in one of these suburbs that Chris Kaba, a young Black man, was shot in the head by a police officer on September 5. The car he was driving was identified through security camera footage as being associated with a gun crime that had occurred a few days earlier. The police chased him and boxed his car into a corner with two police vehicles before fatally shooting him through the windshield. Kaba was unarmed, and allegations of his connection to the gun crime remain unproven.
Chris Kaba’s family were pressured to refrain from organizing protests while the country was mourning the death of the Queen. But they were undaunted by this pressure and led demonstrations in front of the offices of Scotland Yard (the headquarters of the metropolitan police) on September 17.
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Chris Kaba’s mother Helen Nkama is surrounded by family and friends during a protest outside of Scotland Yard Metropolitan police headquarters to demand justice for the murder of her son, who was shot by police on September 5 in South London.
London-based anti-racism organizations such as the Black Lives Matter Movement U.K. held protests for two consecutive Saturdays. Thus far, they have succeeded in getting the officer who shot him suspended and opening a criminal investigation for manslaughter through the Independent Office of Police Conduct, the police watchdog organization.
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Chris Kaba’s cousin Sheeda told the crowd protesting outside Scotland Yard: “We know we are not alone and we are very grateful.” Thanks to public pressure, Kaba’s family has succeeded in turning the case into a criminal case.
The Kaba family is demanding to know whether the police were following Chris specifically or simply following a car associated with a crime. They are also demanding that the police officer who fired the gun be interviewed as a defendant in the potential murder case.
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Former Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (right) speaks at a rally to demand justice for Chris Kaba.
Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the Labour Party, attended the Scotland Yard protest in support of the Kaba family. He told the crowd it was unacceptable that it had taken four days for the police to open a criminal investigation and two more days for the police officer involved to be suspended. Since 1990, at least 1,883 people have died in police custody in England and Wales, mostly Black people. In most cases, the police were not criminally charged.
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Police officers stand guard outside Scotland Yard headquarters on September 17 during the protest called by Chris Kaba’s family.
As England continues to mourn, many people are outraged by the level of institutional racism that persists in British society today and are demanding justice for a young Black man who should have never been killed.
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Lara, a Nigerian woman who has lived in the United Kingdom for twenty years, wraps herself in a Union Jack flag with the image of the late Queen Elizabeth II. “I have come to pay tribute to the lady. She gave me a passport to live and work in this country and I am very grateful,” Lara told me as she laid the flowers in St. James’s Park outside Buckingham Palace in London.