THE police marksman on trial for killing Chris Kaba was wrongly expected to be a RoboCop with instant reactions, a jury heard.
Martyn Blake, who shot the 24-year-old in the head through the windscreen of his Audi, was a human being not a computer, his barrister said.
The police marksman on trial for killing Chris Kaba was wrongly expected to be a RoboCop with instant reactions, a jury has heard[/caption]
Patrick Gibbs KC said the Met officer, 40, was not like the 1980s film hero with total vision and nanosecond reactions who could freeze frame a chaotic scene on screen to assess the danger.
He added: “If the way he saw the world was like the internal screen of RoboCop, able to respond just like that to everything, then maybe you would be right as the split second of the shot would be like the split second on screen.
“But he isn’t, it he? None of us is. He is not a robot.
“He is a human being with a human brain who did this to the best of his ability.”
Mr Gibbs suggested the “elephant in the room” might be that Mr. Kaba’s actions did not reflect those of someone who posed no threat
Mr Kaba died as armed cops stopped his Audi Q8 — linked to a shotgun incident — in Streatham, South London, in 2022.
Prosecutors claim Blake, who denies murder, exaggerated the danger he was facing.
The judge is due to sum up the case at the Old Bailey on Monday.
A computer-generated image of a reconstruction shown to the court at the Old Bailey depicts the position of two firearms officers in front of the Audi in which Chris Kaba was fatally shot[/caption]
