A CHILDHOOD pal of Chris Kaba said he urged him to turn his life around three weeks before he was shot dead by a cop — only to be told by his gang that “easy money is the best money”.
The violent crook rejected the chance to spurn gang life, going on to shoot a rival in a nightclub.
Six days later Kaba, 24, was shot dead as he tried to ram his way out of a police stop in South London.
Met Police gun cop Sgt Martyn Blake, 40, was last week cleared of his murder at the Old Bailey.
Kaba’s past was revealed at the end of the trial, including his role as a core member of South London’s notorious 67 gang.
He got his first of six convictions aged just 13.
And The Sun on Sunday can reveal friends warned that he should quit gang life before it was too late.
One, seen with Kaba in a 2020 photo, said he warned members they were getting too old for gang warfare.
Of Kaba, he said: “He got sucked into the gang world, but he probably allowed himself to get sucked in.”
He said he had confronted the gang, with Kaba there.
The pal recalled: “I asked ‘when are you guys gonna change your life?’.
“I said, ‘you lot are getting late 20s and stuff like that, and you’re still doing the same things.
“When are you gonna change your life?’.
“And I got told that ‘easy money is the best money . . . f**k doing a nine to five’, and stuff like that.”
His advice was ignored by Kaba — who was seen on CCTV firing at a rival gangster in a club in Hackney, East London, a week before his death on September 5, 2022, in Streatham.
The friend, who declined to be named out of fear of retribution, had known Kaba since he was 12 — and revealed he had wanted to be an architect.
But he said: “As he got older it was like his ambitions for a proper career fizzled out, and he fell further into a life of crime.
“He could have been a wonderful dad if he’d changed his life, and he would have known that he could have changed his life.
“But you have to want to change. He didn’t want to.”
Members of Kaba’s family joined a protest march to Downing Street yesterday.
Relatives of people who have died in custody delivered a note to PM Sir Keir Starmer, saying they want to remind him of “everybody’s right to life”.
Troop back-up
AROUND 300 soldiers were secretly deployed to London last week in case of a walkout of armed police officers.
The troops, from the Royal Regiment of Scotland, were armed with SA-80 assault rifles and Glock pistols.
The Met Police asked for help after 300 armed cops downed tools last year after Sgt Martyn Blake was charged with Chris Kaba’s murder.
Details of the plan were kept quiet amid fears it could cause Sgt Blake’s trial to collapse before the verdict. But he was cleared and the troops were stood down before they were needed.
By Jerome Starkey
