SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion MP Rod­ney Charles yes­ter­day ques­tioned if the Ch­agua­nas woman who re­cent­ly used a male rel­a­tive’s li­censed firearm and fired a sin­gle shot, killing an al­leged home in­vad­er, will have to wait weeks for the po­lice to con­duct an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine her guilt or in­no­cence.

And if charged, he said this woman, who de­fend­ed her­self, prop­er­ty and fam­i­ly from an in­trud­er, would have to wait years to prove her in­no­cence.

Charles made the com­ment dur­ing a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress me­dia con­fer­ence as de­bate on the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s pro­posed “stand your ground” leg­is­la­tion con­tin­ues to build mo­men­tum.

His state­ment came hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley told sup­port­ers in St Joseph on Sat­ur­day that the stand your ground pro­pos­al would cre­ate “an en­vi­ron­ment of a free for all... shoot first and ask ques­tions af­ter and I do not be­lieve that is what the so­ci­ety is ask­ing for as a re­sponse to the crime wave that we are fac­ing.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said the first piece of leg­is­la­tion a UNC gov­ern­ment will bring to the Par­lia­ment will be “stand your ground” leg­is­la­tion.

On Thurs­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar stood her ground on the is­sue de­spite neg­a­tive back­lash from some quar­ters, in­clud­ing from the PM and Gov­ern­ment and oth­er sec­tors of so­ci­ety, say­ing she would not apol­o­gise for call­ing on cit­i­zens to “light up” home in­vaders in self-de­fence.

Speak­ing to re­porters yes­ter­day, Charles said Row­ley had ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of try­ing to “mil­i­tarise” the coun­try through her pro­posed leg­is­la­tion and mak­ing le­gal firearms eas­i­er to ac­cess for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

“What Dr Row­ley fails to re­alise is that T&T is an al­ready mil­i­tarised war zone due to poor bor­der con­trol mea­sures. Any crim­i­nal worth his salt has ready ac­cess to high-pow­ered ri­fles.”

Av­er­age cit­i­zens, he said, are de­fence­less against gun-tot­ing crim­i­nals.

“We re­main what you call in war, civil­ian ca­su­al­ties. That is what all of us are. The bat­tle is too one-sided. I ful­ly sup­port Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in her de­sire to lev­el the play­ing field. Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must be con­grat­u­lat­ed for start­ing a con­ver­sa­tion on a most im­por­tant mat­ter of home and busi­ness in­va­sions.”

The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, he said, meant putting in­to our laws the le­gal prin­ci­ple that al­lows a per­son to use force in self-de­fence with­out re­treat­ing.

Charles cit­ed the ex­am­ple of the 45-year-old Ch­agua­nas woman who re­trieved a male rel­a­tive’s li­censed firearm and killed a home in­vad­er last week, say­ing the woman would now have to wait weeks for the po­lice to con­duct an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine her guilt or in­no­cence.

“If charged she would have to wait years to prove her in­no­cence. And how long does it take to de­ter­mine whether it was pro­por­tion­ate to the cir­cum­stances? Clear­ly, there are in­stances where it is clear-cut. But there are many shades of grey ar­eas and the cit­i­zens hav­ing to face the trau­ma of an in­vad­er.”

An­oth­er trau­ma, he said, is the year-long wait for jus­tice, which does not make sense in a coun­try as­pir­ing to first-world sta­tus.

Us­ing rea­son­able force on some­one who in­vades your house is “too sub­jec­tive a propo­si­tion in­volv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers de­ter­min­ing what is rea­son­able,” he said.

He said no one was safe in T&T, as the mur­der count was al­most 350 and home in­va­sions were on the rise.

“I will get to a stage where some­one will tar­get me.”

Charles said while the Op­po­si­tion Leader had put for­ward this mea­sure, Row­ley had no plans and so­lu­tions.

“What is yours? Are you sat­is­fied with the present state of home in­va­sions and the sta­tus quo re­lat­ing to that mat­ter? Speak up, Dr Row­ley. Come out of your hid­ing and tell us an al­ter­na­tive pol­i­cy that makes sense. Clear­ly, you can­not re­ly on the sta­tus quo.”

He said it was ob­vi­ous that crim­i­nals had the up­per hand on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, who have been wait­ing for years to have more ac­cess to le­gal gun own­er­ship.

“They are at the mer­cy of the TTPS bu­reau­cra­cy and at the mer­cy of our crim­i­nals who have guns.”