JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Pepper spray debate heads to Senate next week

by

Gail Alexander
1412 days ago
20210506
Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi.

Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi.

OFFICE OF THE PARLIAMENT

Long-await­ed leg­is­la­tion for pep­per spray use will be de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate next Tues­day—and apart from ap­pli­cants over 18, cer­tain cat­e­gories of law en­force­ment will al­so be al­lowed to use it in their du­ties.

Plus there will be huge fines, along with jail terms, for mis­use of the non-lethal weapon.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi con­firmed de­vel­op­ments Wednes­day.

Pro­pos­als for pep­per spray use are an amend­ment to the Firearms Act. It re­quires on­ly a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty of votes—large­ly Gov­ern­ment’s—for pas­sage

Al-Rawi said, “I’m pleased to pi­lot this amend­ment next week, in­tro­duc­ing pep­per spray in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go. While there’s much talk on it, par­tic­u­lar­ly from the Op­po­si­tion, it’s a fact no oth­er gov­ern­ment had the courage to do this.”

“Al­so, this isn’t the cure-all for the dif­fi­cul­ties of vile, hor­ri­ble vi­o­lence against women and vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple.

“I re­mind that Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Sad­dam Ho­sein, es­pe­cial­ly, stand as the forces against re­mov­ing and con­strain­ing mon­sters that walk among us by their fail­ure to sup­port amend­ments on bail law, Wit­ness Anonymi­ty, cy­ber­crime, the An­ti-Gang bill. It demon­strates their view that when T&T fails, they suc­ceed. I call on both to stop play­ing smart with fool­ish­ness.”

The bill be­ing in­tro­duced is the cul­mi­na­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s work on non-lethal weapons fol­low­ing pub­lic pres­sure af­ter the mur­ders of women, in­clud­ing Ashan­ti Ri­ley and An­drea Bharatt, which prompt­ed calls for use of pep­per spray, Tasers or oth­er non-lethal weapons.

Gov­ern­ment first stat­ed it would con­sult ex­perts fol­low­ing con­cerns the de­vice would be used by cul­prits against peo­ple who had them. But Po­lice sup­port­ed pep­per spray use. Con­sid­er­a­tion be­gan. Fol­low­ing pub­lic out­cry af­ter Bharatt’s mur­der it was an­nounced that pep­per spray would be ap­proved with a per­mit sys­tem.

The bill was ap­proved by Cab­i­net, ex­am­ined by its Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es sub-com­mit­tee and re­leased for de­bate. The bill, which places pep­per spray un­der the Firearm Act, pro­vides for two types of per­mits.

Much like firearms, peo­ple will have to ap­ply to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice or an au­tho­rised of­fi­cer for a per­mit to im­port, ex­port, di­vert, sell, man­u­fac­ture, pro­duce or dis­trib­ute pep­per spray.

Ac­cord­ing to the pro­pos­al, those who wish to pur­chase, ac­quire or have it in their pos­ses­sion will ap­ply for a Pep­per Spray per­mit.

Both types of per­mits will be grant­ed to peo­ple over the age of 18.

In the case of those 16 and over, the par­ent, guardian or per­son with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the child, must give writ­ten per­mis­sion for the child to be in pos­ses­sion of pep­per spray.

For busi­ness peo­ple, a li­cense to im­port, pro­duce or man­u­fac­ture pep­per spray will cost $50 and be for five years. For hold­ers, a li­cence to pur­chase, ac­quire or have pep­per spray will cost the same and be for three years.

Per­mits won’t be grant­ed to peo­ple whom the Com­mis­sion­er/of­fi­cer has rea­son to be­lieve to be of “in­tem­per­ate habits or un­sound mind, or to be for any rea­son un­fit to be en­trust­ed with pep­per spray.”

It is pro­posed that Es­tate Po­lice, Spe­cial Re­serve Of­fi­cers, Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Of­fi­cers and “such oth­er per­sons” as ap­proved by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter to have in their pos­ses­sion pep­per spray when per­form­ing their func­tions. This sec­tor had ap­pealed for years for use of non-lethal weapons.

On­ly for self-de­fence

Peo­ple au­tho­rised to pur­chase, ac­quire or have pep­per spray, shall on­ly use it in self-de­fence.

The pro­posed law states there is a penal­ty for us­ing pep­per spray in the com­mis­sion of a crim­i­nal of­fence is—on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion—a fine of $250,000 and five year’s jail or on con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment, a fine of $750,000 and 15 years jail.

Those charged with se­ri­ous crimes—of­fences against the per­son, bur­glar­ies, kid­nap­ping, traf­fick­ing, of­fences against a child, tres­pass­ing, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence—or are on bail or or­ders con­cern­ing Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence is­sues won’t be al­lowed per­mits.

Per­mit hold­ers charged/con­vict­ed for an of­fence shall re­turn the de­vice and per­mit to the po­lice.

Any­one sell­ing/trans­fer­ring pep­per spray to any oth­er per­son who doesn’t hold or isn’t ex­empt from hold­ing ei­ther per­mit is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to fine of $550,000 and five years jail or on con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to fine of $750,000 and 15 years jail.

Those car­ry­ing the de­vice must have the per­mit on them. De­vices must be stored out of reach of chil­dren. There’s a $100,000 fine and six months jail for non–com­pli­ance.

If a per­mit or de­vice is lost/stolen it must be re­port­ed to the po­lice. If it is found by some­one, they must de­liv­er it to a po­lice sta­tion.

Apart from Op­po­si­tion calls for the bill, the pre­sen­ta­tion comes as the Can­dle­light Move­ment—led by Phillip Alexan­der, In­shan Ish­mael and Ian Al­leyne—got 128,520 sig­na­tures on an an­ti-vi­o­lence pe­ti­tion. This was cir­cu­lat­ed af­ter Bharatt’s mur­der.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored