Britain’s most senior police officer accused “those in positions of authority” of feeding “a dangerous narrative” over the shooting of black Londoner Chris Kaba after he was detained by officers in 2022.

Sir Mark Rowley, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said that by focusing on Kaba’s ethnicity, they had created “rumours and innuendo” which could “embolden those working against the public”.

Labor MPs Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and Kim Johnson were among prominent people who raised concerns about possible police racism or called for “justice for Chris Kaba”.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the shooting had caused “anger, pain and fear” among black Londoners.

One charity, The Runnymede Trust, tweeted that “the legal system fails to deliver real justice to families bereaved by racist state violence.”

The tweet was deleted after a jury acquitted a police officer, Martyn Blake, of Kaba’s murder and an Old Bailey judge removed a restriction on reporting Kaba’s criminal past.

Sir Mark’s comments came at an event organized by the charity Crimestoppers, which offers confidential ways to give information to police.

Discussing the erosion of trust in the police, he said: “Those in positions of authority must move in the same direction on trust. I think that, unfortunately, this is too often not the case. I think some people need to be more aware of the weight of their words.

“Their attitudes and actions can embolden those who work against the public.

“From the beginning, for the last two years, most of the online conversation focused entirely on Chris Kaba’s ethnicity.

“Rumors and innuendo fueled a quite dangerous narrative of alleged facts that were separated from the evidence presented in court and the verdict recently delivered by 12 Londoners.”

He did not name them, but said that “some people, with great influence, risk undermining the British justice system, and those people should know better.”

Kaba’s car was being followed by police in south London in September 2022, when it was stopped by Blake and his colleagues. The vehicle was driven back and forth in an apparent attempt to escape.

Blake fired a single shot, killing Mr. Kaba. At his trial, Blake said he feared he or his colleagues may have been killed or injured because of the way the car was being driven.

The shooting sparked widespread online comments and protests.

In one of them, former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn said that “we cannot live through the pain his family feels, but we can support them to demand #JusticeForChrisKaba.”

Rapper Stormzy also protested, reportedly saying of the police that “when these people do these things, they get away with it.”

“What they’ve done is kill someone. We can’t sugarcoat it.”

In an article, MP Diane Abbott wrote that Kaba had suffered a “terrible fate”.

“People can even lose their lives during their daily lives.”

He said the case was related to the “broader treatment of black people and other ethnic groups in this country”.

The Old Bailey jury heard that while Kaba was unarmed and Blake gave evidence he could see the driver was a “comparatively young and athletic” black man, police did not know who was behind the wheel and the car had been linked. to a previous incident.

They later revealed video evidence that Kaba had shot a rival in an incident days before police detained and killed him.

The Met said Kaba was a leading member of the 67 gang, active in south London.

While news organizations including the BBC were aware of his background, for legal reasons they were unable to report it until after the verdict.

In the House of Commons, Labor MP Kim Johnson claimed the media was using “racist gang tropes to justify his murder”.

But in his speech, Sir Mark said Kaba was part of an extensive gang in Lambeth, south London, which “coerces and exploits black children and drags them into gangs and crime”.

“They are among the 10 most active gangs in London,” he said, and have been involved in 11 shootings over the past year.

He argued that most of the online discussion had focused not on the central issues of the case — whether a police officer was legally justified in firing the fatal shot, given the situation — but on whether the police were racist.

He said, “That doesn’t mean there isn’t a national conversation about disproportionality in the justice system.”

“We have a decade of data telling us that young black men in London are 13 times more likely to be murdered than their white counterparts.”

He said this should spark a national outcry in the same way the police were criticized for policing Covid.

“Trust in the police will be helped by an honest conversation about the risks faced by different communities and a collective effort to give everyone an equal opportunity to thrive in London and not be drawn into crime.”

But after the Kaba case, he backed calls for the anonymity of police officers with firearms facing serious criminal charges.

In response, Abbott tweeted that Sir Mark was supposed to have been the “new broom” at the Met, but instead of offering a “fresh start”, he had continued to support “lack of police accountability”.

In his speech, Sir Mark said the case had affected officers so much that they were “more concerned about the legal risk than the physical risk”.