Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­it­er­at­ed that the UNC’s pro­posed “stand your ground law” will al­low law-abid­ing cit­i­zens gun own­er­ship say­ing when crim­i­nals in­vade the homes of li­cenced gun own­ers, they (the po­ten­tial vic­tims) should “light them up”.

This is a type of self-de­fence law that gives in­di­vid­u­als the right to use any force nec­es­sary (in­clud­ing dead­ly force) to de­fend them­selves from death or se­ri­ous in­jury with­out any re­quire­ment to evade or re­treat from a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion.

Such a law will en­sure cit­i­zens are not sub­ject to pros­e­cu­tion for de­fend­ing them­selves against vi­o­lent crim­i­nals both in­side or out­side of their homes.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed last Sat­ur­day’s in­ci­dent in which a 45-year-old home­own­er of Egypt Trace off Soogrim Trace, En­deav­our, was at home with her daugh­ter around 8.15 pm when an un­known num­ber of men at­tempt­ed to en­ter her house.

It is al­leged that the moth­er saw the sus­pect open the door to her sil­ver Hon­da CRV in her yard and sound the horn sev­er­al times be­fore walk­ing to the front door and shak­ing it as he at­tempt­ed to gain en­try to the house.

The woman re­port­ed­ly re­trieved a male rel­a­tive’s li­cenced firearm and fired a sin­gle shot in the sus­pect’s di­rec­tion, hit­ting him in the head. He died and the oth­er sus­pects fled. Po­lice iden­ti­fied the dead sus­pect as Mark An­tho­ny Joseph, 25, of Ch­agua­nas.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers are now prob­ing the cir­cum­stances of that in­ci­dent.

At the par­ty’s pub­lic meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas on Mon­day night Per­sad-Bisses­sar added,  “So when the crim­i­nals in­vade your home, draw your li­cenced firearm and light dem up! Emp­ty the whole clip! Re­load! Fight fire with fire!”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said,” This is why more law-abid­ing cit­i­zens must be giv­en le­gal firearms, why we must have stand your ground laws, so this woman will not be charged. As long as PNM is in Gov­ern­ment, they won’t sup­port you de­fend­ing your­self.”

She al­so called on cit­i­zens to send the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in­for­ma­tion on al­leged cor­rup­tion by some TTPS of­fi­cers con­cern­ing the grant­i­ng of li­cences for “noise pol­lu­tion” events.

Al­so at the meet­ing, UNC MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly claimed that an au­dit con­duct­ed by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) which un­cov­ered “mas­sive cor­rup­tion against PNM fi­nanciers” had been sent to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

Slam­ming the PNM at length, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “We have gone through un­der this Gov­ern­ment–now is the time for change.”

She said the pro­lif­er­a­tion of noise pol­lu­tion from fetes, bars and clubs is an in­tol­er­a­ble scourge on cit­i­zens’ men­tal health.

“The sys­tem for li­cenc­ing these noise mak­ing events/es­tab­lish­ments is rid­dled with cor­rup­tion and col­lu­sion be­tween par­ty or­gan­is­ers, es­tab­lish­ment own­ers, cor­rupt po­lice of­fi­cers and mag­is­trates,’ she claimed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged, “There are many re­ports made to MP’s and coun­cil­lors dai­ly from con­stituents” about:

• Some TTPS of­fi­cers ig­nor­ing com­plaints of noise from bars and fetes.

• Some po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cept­ing bribes in cash and free ser­vices from bar own­ers to as­sist in ac­quir­ing li­cences.

• Some of­fi­cers re­fus­ing to in­form res­i­dents of hear­ings for li­cence re­newals to pre­vent ob­jec­tions.

• Some giv­ing wit­ness state­ments to the court in sup­port of grant­i­ng li­cences de­spite cit­i­zens’ com­plaints.

• Some se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers in­tim­i­dat­ing de­cent po­lice pros­e­cu­tors in­to dis­re­gard­ing cit­i­zens’ com­plaints and al­low­ing li­cences to be grant­ed with­out ob­jec­tion.

• Some po­lice of­fi­cers own­ing bars, ma­nip­u­lat­ing the sys­tem to avoid ac­count­abil­i­ty for noise pol­lu­tion.

Se­nior cop warns

Yes­ter­day, a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer cau­tioned li­cenced firearm users that if they use ex­ces­sive force they could face crim­i­nal charges.

The of­fi­cer, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said, “When­ev­er us­ing your firearm in­stead of think­ing about emp­ty­ing your clip make sure there is an im­mi­nent threat of death or se­ri­ous bod­i­ly in­jury oc­cur­ring. If there is no threat of death or se­ri­ous bod­i­ly oc­cur­ring, you are in prob­lems. Be­cause if a man come in your house with a stone in the yard, and he say, ‘I will pelt you and kill you,’ you don’t take your firearm and shoot him down be­cause the use of force the per­son hav­ing out­side with the stone, the use of force of a firearm far out­weighs it.”

And the head of the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said when the coun­cil con­venes it will dis­cuss the com­ments made by Per­sad-Bisses­sar.