One at­tor­ney is say­ing that the law of self-de­fence al­lows cit­i­zens to use rea­son­able force to de­fend them­selves if un­der at­tack.

And while each case must be con­sid­ered on its own mer­it, if the po­lice con­sid­er the force to be ex­ces­sive, a per­son can face crim­i­nal charges and the brunt of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

At­tor­ney Om Lal­la yes­ter­day ar­gued that the pub­lic need­ed to be aware of the pos­si­ble ram­i­fi­ca­tions for self-de­fence.

Un­will­ing to com­ment on any spe­cif­ic sit­u­a­tion but of­fer­ing gen­er­alised knowl­edge, he said, “It is be­com­ing very wor­ry­ing at a time when peo­ple are ter­ri­fied in their homes ... what are their le­gal rights in terms of how they should de­fend them­selves,” he said.

Fo­cus­ing on li­cenced firearm users, their pow­ers, their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, and know­ing when to use the firearm, Lal­la ex­plained, “Very of­ten when a li­cenced firearm user draws his firearm or fires, he is the sub­ject of a se­ri­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine if he act­ed prop­er­ly or whether he erred in the way he used this firearm. So while there are calls for peo­ple to use their guns, the pub­lic and li­cenced firearm hold­ers have to al­so un­der­stand that there is a heavy bur­den placed on a li­cenced firearm hold­er when you use your firearm.”

In­di­cat­ing that in al­most all the cas­es in which li­cenced firearms are used, they are re­tained by the po­lice when they are dis­charged re­gard­less of the cir­cum­stances.

Lal­la said the po­lice were the fi­nal ad­ju­di­ca­tors to de­ter­mine if charges should be laid “based on how they view the facts”.

Claim­ing the law was still very ar­cha­ic in terms of how mat­ters were treat­ed, he said in in­stances where rea­son­able force was used and leads to mur­der, manslaugh­ter and/or shoot­ing with in­tent, it could take be­tween five and ten years for a de­ter­mi­na­tion.

He sug­gest­ed an im­me­di­ate mea­sure to bring clar­i­ty to the on­go­ing pub­lic de­bate.

“There must be di­a­logue with the po­lice, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, and li­cenced firearm hold­ers as to what their rights and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties are,” Lal­la said.

Lal­la said the po­lice need­ed to spell out the var­i­ous cir­cum­stances in which li­cenced firearm users can in fact use their weapon, whilst si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly avoid­ing a breach of the law.

Look­ing at the cur­rent land­scape and tak­ing in­to ac­count the pub­lic fear of crime, he stat­ed, “The coun­try is al­ready in a very ner­vous state and peo­ple re­act to save lives.”

On the is­sue of li­cenced firearm users’ rel­a­tives us­ing/han­dling their weapons, he said this was an­oth­er dis­cus­sion that had to be thor­ough­ly ven­ti­lat­ed among all rel­e­vant agen­cies and as­so­ci­a­tions be­fore any amend­ments to the ex­ist­ing laws could be made.

Re­gard­ing how le­gal is­sues as well as the gen­er­al crime sit­u­a­tion have be­come po­lit­i­cal foot­balls, Lal­la said, “Mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty must al­ways be treat­ed very re­spon­si­bly on both sides.”

He said, “There is no de­bate about it, it is very clear. We have an un­con­trol­lable crime rate where most of the vic­tims are law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. Our home in­va­sion rate is alarm­ing­ly high and we need to ad­dress how we pro­tect the cit­i­zens by giv­ing them rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion that they can deal with it.”

TTPS: 110 ar­rest­ed

for home in­va­sions

One hun­dred and ten peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed over the last eight months in con­nec­tion with re­ports of home in­va­sions.

This is ac­cord­ing to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) who yes­ter­day as­sured that they would con­tin­ue to in­ten­si­fy ef­forts to re­store safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty across the coun­try.

At­tribut­ing the ar­rests to strate­gies adopt­ed by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, the TTPS said dur­ing the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to Ju­ly 2023, there was a re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous crimes across the ten polic­ing di­vi­sions, com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

They point­ed to the cre­ation of a spe­cial team of of­fi­cers as the dri­ving force be­hind it. This team in­cludes of­fi­cers from the West­ern Di­vi­sion Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment and Gang Unit; the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion and North­ern Di­vi­sion Gang Units; as well as of­fi­cers from the South­ern, Cen­tral and South West­ern Di­vi­sions led by ACP Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion, Kent Ghisyawan.

The TTPS al­so spoke about in­creased pa­trols and the use of in­tel­li­gence as well as co­op­er­a­tion from the pub­lic.

The TTPS al­so quot­ed from the Firearms Act, Chap­ter 16:01, Sec­tion 6 (1), as they re­mind­ed, “A per­son may have in his pos­ses­sion a firearm or am­mu­ni­tion on­ly if he holds a Firearm User’s Li­cence (FUL) with re­spect to such firearm or am­mu­ni­tion.”

Sec­tion 6 (3) of the act states, “Any per­son who con­tra­venes any of the pro­vi­sions of this sec­tion is li­able in the case of—(a) an of­fence un­der sub­sec­tion (1)—(i) on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of $15,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for eight years; or (ii) on con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to im­pris­on­ment for 15 years.”

The TTPS urged, “FUL hold­ers are there­fore urged to fol­low the pro­vi­sions of the law at all times as it re­lates to the pos­ses­sion and dis­charge of firearms.”

Sec­tion 11 (1) of the act states, “A per­son who dis­charges a firearm or am­mu­ni­tion on or with­in forty me­ters of any pub­lic road or in any pub­lic place, is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of $15,000, ex­cept where he does so—(a) in the law­ful pro­tec­tion of his per­son or prop­er­ty or of the per­son or prop­er­ty of some oth­er per­son.”

Mean­while, the Po­lice Ser­vice has al­so en­cour­aged home­own­ers to keep their homes, prop­er­ties and pos­ses­sion prop­er­ly se­cured.