An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has come out in full sup­port of De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge’s con­tro­ver­sial ad­vice to “shoot first and ex­plain lat­er,” as the Gov­ern­ment push­es its pro­posed stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion.

Speak­ing to re­porters at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Alexan­der de­fend­ed the prin­ci­ple of the leg­is­la­tion, stress­ing that cir­cum­stances must al­ways be con­sid­ered. He il­lus­trat­ed two sce­nar­ios: an armed sus­pect flee­ing af­ter a rob­bery and a woman be­ing vi­o­lent­ly as­sault­ed dur­ing a home in­va­sion.

“In those sit­u­a­tions, would you ask the sus­pect to stop and face front be­fore shoot­ing? Be­fore peo­ple fill your heads with crazi­ness, ask some­body who knows,” Alexan­der told re­porters.

The pro­posed law will ex­pand the right of cit­i­zens to use dead­ly force when fac­ing an im­me­di­ate threat dur­ing home in­va­sions or sim­i­lar in­ci­dents, mir­ror­ing leg­is­la­tion in some US states.

Alexan­der, a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer, al­so de­fend­ed the TTPS against crit­i­cism it is be­ing too lib­er­al with the use of force pol­i­cy, em­pha­sis­ing of­fi­cers do not seek con­fronta­tion.

“No po­lice of­fi­cer is look­ing for­ward to a gun con­fronta­tion,” he said.

“No po­lice of­fi­cer is look­ing to just ex­e­cute some­one. When I hear that talk, I say it’s ei­ther the crim­i­nal el­e­ment spread­ing it—or per­sons on so­cial me­dia who love the crim­i­nal el­e­ment un­til they are vic­tims of crime.”

On re­cent al­le­ga­tions of ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings, Alexan­der in­sist­ed po­lice act on­ly to de­fend cit­i­zens and them­selves.

“All that is be­ing done is pro­tect­ing our cit­i­zens against the crim­i­nal el­e­ment who in­tend to mur­der, rape, rob and kid­nap,” he said. “The po­lice do not leave home, or the sta­tion, with the in­ten­tion to kill any­one. The be­hav­iour of those per­sons would have in­vit­ed their own deaths.”

He al­so cau­tioned the pub­lic against un­der­min­ing law en­force­ment while vi­o­lent crime re­mains high.

“We con­tin­ue to tar­get those who pro­tect us,” he said, not­ing that the mur­der rate has not de­creased de­spite fa­tal po­lice en­gage­ments with armed sus­pects.

The Stand-Your-Ground leg­is­la­tion re­mains un­der pub­lic scruti­ny, with sup­port­ers like Sturge and Alexan­der ar­gu­ing it will de­ter vi­o­lent home in­va­sions, while crit­ics warn it risks en­cour­ag­ing vig­i­lan­tism and po­ten­tial mis­use.