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Monday, September 22, 2025

Hinds - Kamla’s call to cops to return fire with full force ‘dangerous advice’

by

Jesse Ramdeo
482 days ago
20240529
Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds

Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds

KERWIN PIERRE

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds has la­belled Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call for po­lice of­fi­cers to “re­turn fire with full force” against crim­i­nals as dan­ger­ous and reck­less.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Hinds said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment was ir­re­spon­si­ble.

“She has now gone on to call on the po­lice in par­tic­u­lar to stand your ground, emp­ty the clip, lock it, cock it. Now I speak as a for­mer po­lice in­struc­tor, I speak as an at­tor­ney-at-law and, of course, as a leg­is­la­tor and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, as far as I and the po­lice are aware, the law and the ethos is and has al­ways been no more than is ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary is to be used.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the call while ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers at the launch of the Star slate for the par­ty’s June 15 in­ter­nal elec­tions at the Cou­va South Mul­ti­pur­pose Hall on Mon­day night.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when faced with dan­ger, po­lice of­fi­cers have the right to de­fend them­selves.

“Tonight, I tell all TTPS of­fi­cers —if crim­i­nals point a gun at you, shoot at you or at­tack you, re­turn fire with full force, de­fend your­selves! Don’t be hes­i­tant! Be­ing hes­i­tant can cost you your life. I’m in full sup­port of our po­lice of­fi­cers stand­ing their ground against vi­o­lent crim­i­nals.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader added that po­lice of­fi­cers must be sup­port­ed and giv­en the pow­er to pro­tect them­selves, but must use the pow­er with dis­cre­tion.

She added, “I’m warn­ing this coun­try that we can­not tie our po­lice of­fi­cers’ hands when they re­spond in pur­suit of vi­o­lent crim­i­nals. Of­fi­cers on­ly have a split sec­ond to re­spond to at­tacks, we can­not have our of­fi­cers doubt­ing our sup­port, this can cost them their lives.”

But Hinds yes­ter­day said the call for of­fi­cers to stand their ground was mis­guid­ed and that a po­lice’s right to de­fend them­selves while in the line of du­ty has nev­er ceased.

“The la­dy, in try­ing to gain sup­port for her reck­less com­ment months ago, is call­ing on the po­lice say­ing they must have the right to de­fend them­selves. The la­dy does not re­alise ap­par­ent­ly, se­nior coun­sel as she is, that the po­lice al­ways had that right, they have that right. They have used that right on many oc­ca­sions but they are con­strained to ob­serve the prin­ci­ple that you must use no more force than is nec­es­sary.

“So if the po­lice is able to sub­due a man with a ba­ton or with a taser, or with gas and then go on to use a lethal bar­rel weapon and pump bul­lets in­to this man, who is al­ready un­der con­trol, then that po­lice ex­pos­es him­self to crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.”

Hinds said he was con­fi­dent the TTPS is suf­fi­cient­ly ground­ed and pro­fes­sion­al enough to re­ject the “reck­less” com­ment.

He point­ed out that there ap­peared to be di­verg­ing opin­ions with­in the UNC on the mat­ter, not­ing that vice chair­man Khadi­jah Ameen re­cent­ly stat­ed that per­pe­tra­tors must be af­ford­ed a fair tri­al so the pub­lic could re­gain con­fi­dence in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith said while he sup­ports the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s ad­vo­ca­cy for law en­force­ment of­fi­cials ac­cess­ing firearms while off du­ty, he was at odds with her on the “re­turn fire with full force po­si­tion”.

“What is re­quired in any as­pect of polic­ing is min­i­mum use of force. The min­i­mum use of force pol­i­cy has to be main­tained. If at any time we go over that thresh­old, then we be­come no dif­fer­ent than the crim­i­nals them­selves,” Grif­fith said.

He said in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven po­lice op­er­a­tions, in ad­di­tion to oth­er poli­cies at this time, were crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant than be­fore.

“There are many things that could be done for the po­lice of­fi­cers. If you give them the min­i­mum use of force pol­i­cy, from ver­bal per­sua­sion to body cam­eras, to pep­per sprays and the firearms, and then us­ing the firearm if at any time their life is at risk.”

Grif­fith said of­fice­hold­ers should be guard­ed with their words so as to not give the im­pres­sion that the po­lice go out­side of their role and func­tion. He ad­vised of­fi­cers to “stay with­in their au­thor­i­ty”

Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dixon, al­so said he had tak­en note of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments and main­tained of­fi­cers were trained to op­er­ate with­in the laws.

“We are near­ing a gen­er­al elec­tion and per­sons will put things in the pub­lic place to get votes or to get per­sons to see things a par­tic­u­lar way. How­ev­er, by and large, our of­fi­cers op­er­ate with­in the con­text of the law and pa­ra­me­ters of the use of force pol­i­cy.”

Mean­while, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dar­ius Figuera was of the view that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s po­si­tion may be root­ed in pol­i­tics, not crime.

“All it is, is a des­per­ate at­tempt to sur­vive against odds that are be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly not in her favour,” Figuera said.


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