Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low­ing the shoot­ing death of a pen­sion­er in To­ba­go by his neigh­bour, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der says the pro­posed stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion will ad­dress pos­si­ble abus­es.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Prison Ser­vice Sports and Fam­i­ly Day, Prison Grounds, Arou­ca, yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said po­lice should be al­lowed to in­ves­ti­gate the shoot­ing.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around 5 am on May 30, the con­sta­ble was at his Mt St George home when he was awak­ened by the sound of his dogs bark­ing and his 74-year-old neigh­bour Frank Alan Sandy, tug­ging at his door. The of­fi­cer is al­leged to have be­come fear­ful af­ter Sandy re­port­ed­ly lunged at him with an ob­ject in hand, and shot him three times.

Speak­ing with Sun­day Guardian, ACP To­ba­go Os­wain Subero said both the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) and Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter out­side of lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor Snr Supt Earl El­lie.

Subero said that both he and El­lie vis­it­ed Sandy’s fam­i­ly to out­line the steps to be tak­en for the in­ves­ti­ga­tions. He al­so de­nied re­ports that the of­fi­cer fled to Trinidad.

Asked if he was con­cerned the law may spark vig­i­lan­tism, Alexan­der said no.

“Once we keep the good cit­i­zens law-abid­ing, I can’t see it be­ing an is­sue. So we just have to keep the cit­i­zens law-abid­ing and let the crim­i­nals do their thing so they’ll be ad­dressed when they come to the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens’ home.”

And how will cit­i­zens be kept law-abid­ing? Alexan­der said, “It’s all about teach­ing per­sons, ex­plain­ing to per­sons, un­der­stand­ing the law and the con­se­quences of your ac­tions.”

On Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stood firm on her in­ten­tion to bring stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress home in­va­sions.

“If you’re against get­ting a firearm, you have the op­tion, it is your choice, do not ap­ply but we would pro­ceed with stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion. We will pro­ceed with giv­ing le­gal firearms, with­in a frame­work, be­cause those were mat­ters. We promised the elec­torate. Many vic­tims of home in­va­sions have writ­ten to me about their ex­pe­ri­ences. Most vic­tims want to de­fend their fam­i­lies but did not have the equal means to do so,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

In the US, stand-your-ground laws are statutes that al­low in­di­vid­u­als to use force, in­clud­ing dead­ly force, to de­fend them­selves against per­ceived threats with­out the oblig­a­tion to re­treat.