Penelope Spencer: Police should not shoot to kill

Actress and teacher Penelope Spencer is condemning the killing of 15-year-old Isaac Simmons by police last week.

Simmons was shot and killed during a confrontation with police officers who were investigating a home invasion at Fahey Street, Marabella, last week Thursday.

Police engaged in a shootout with three men, during which Simmons was shot and killed while PC Anand Ram was shot in the abdomen but survived. One of the men was held and the third escaped.

As a mother and grandmother herself, Spencer said she was saddened by the entire incident.

While Ram was defending himself, she felt the officer could have fired a non-fatal shot.

“The police could have shot him without killing him, in his leg or buttock,“ Spencer told Newsday.

”I don’t know what his background is, but I am saddened by the fact it was a little boy. He wasn’t in school, so I don’t know who to blame.

I just want us to be more conscious as a people and caring as a society. He was a child, and I know police would say he was a nuisance, but we could rehabilitate these kids.

“You cannot shoot to kill. Killing cannot be a first thought. That is for God to do. He is the first judge. We should be able to work together and help each other and make each other better human beings. Death cannot be the only option.”

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said he was distressed to see security agencies having to engage in a shoot-out with the boy.

During his speech at a children’s Christmas party in Diego Martin last Saturday, Rowley said if more parents, uncles, aunts and neighbours talked more to those who chose crime as a way of life, it could help those people.

“The whole idea of a 15-year-old wanting to engage the police tells me that something was not right with how he saw himself as a child, and why would a 15-year-old want to think that he could engage the police?” Rowley asked.

He said it was not just a question of locking them up after they committed the crime or killing them when they engage someone, but there was something that was missing, and it had to be what went into those children at the very beginning and how they were brought up.

“How they see others, how they see life, who they respect, what is authority and what do they want out of themselves in life. I think we need to call the parents and community towards some role in this,” Rowley said.