Police have no choice

THE EDITOR: I fail to see why the police should expect not to be sent to quell a confrontation with mentally challenged citizens. Who is supposed to go when we do not have First World mental support services?

TT is a Third World country where the police have to expect to be called out for anything and everything. The talk about police not being trained to deal with the mentally challenged, is nonsensical. They are trained to quell riots, and other situations, we hope. What, in my unsolicited view, appears to be a worrying problem, is that they have no idea how not to shoot to kill. Surely the police are fully trained to also shoot at moving targets.

The gentlemen in charge of the Police Welfare Services Association, Messers Seales and Rampersad, need to get real. Police should be wearing body cameras at all times but especially in dealing with mental health cases. A taser might be helpful but too dangerous a dose of electricity can kill. If we do not have tasers we do have the sensible option of shooting at an an arm or a leg. Not in the head and not in the back and not in the chest, please.

Correct me if I am wrong but there is a difference between self preservation and cowardice. I have no argument with the police being paid higher salaries, they just need to accept the fact that there are lives just as precious as their own. They get paid fair amounts of “danger money.” Ordinary citizens do not.

There is less chance of the challenged person being mortally afraid of being killed by the police if you do not send ten frightening-looking officers with guns. Just two straight-thinking men/women police officers should be adequate.

The fatalities continue to escalate. As we say in local parlance, “These days the police looking like real murderers.”

Lynette Joseph, Diego Martin