PM REJECTS STAND-YOUR-GROUND LAW – says it can be used to commit 'legal murder'

THE Prime Minister said on Sunday afternoon arming citizens was not the answer to the country's crime problems, and the proposal by the Opposition to enact stand-your-ground legislation is also not a viable solution.

Speaking at the PNM’s sport and family day at the Toco Composite High School, Dr Rowley said the promise of a stand-your-ground law was dangerous, and urged his supporters to reject it.

Speaking at the UNC’s Monday Night Report in Couva on April 17, Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the government seemed oblivious to the growing problem of criminality, specifically addressing home invasions.

“We will bring legislation to Parliament to create a specific criminal offence of home invasion, which will involve increasing the sentences for larceny, burglary, serious assault, unlawful entry to your properties, whether it be your homes or businesses; and that you will be able to use force – they (criminals) come using force with guns, cutlasses, whatever it may be.”

On Sunday, Rowley said, "When the Opposition Leader says that their answer to their supporters' call for defence from the criminal element is to pass in the Parliament of this country, stand-your-ground legislation, I want to ask the Opposition Leader: what ground are they going to stand on to kill anybody they want to kill and simply say, 'I was afraid of that person,' or, 'That person was about to attack me in the road or in my yard, and I killed them'?”

He added that the punishment for praedial larceny should not be death, which was what stand-your-ground laws might allow.

He said such laws, American-based legislation, were currently being challenged in US states that had passed it.

He warned that they allowed “some people who hate other people” to use it for "legal murder."

Rowley also chastised pundits Dr Bramanand Rambachan and Satyanand Maharaj for comments they made last Wednesday, suggesting citizens of East Indian descent were being targeted by urban youths from the East-West Corridor.

They were speaking at a meeting at the site of the shooting of Aranguez pharmacist Cheval Ramjattan, who later died in hospital.

Maharaj said then: “All the crime we have been facing in Aranguez is being committed by the urban youth, the miscreants who occupy the East-West Corridor, who feel that what you have belongs to them. And I say that boldly.

"Criminals seem to think Aranguez people have money, but this is generational wealth. We, the citizens, are denied guns. We have no right to shoot back, so we are picked off one by one."

Rowley said guns for all were not the answer and took aim at Maharaj's comment, saying, “When the Opposition Leader, and two or any other number of pundits want to get up in this country and say that the crime we are all facing, that we are all exposed to, that we are all victims of,  when they want to get up and say that it is black people who are attacking Indian people, I say today: you all stop that! Don't go down that road! That is a road of no return.”

Rowley recalled being the victim of a home invasion over two decades ago when a man entered his Westmoorings bedroom armed with an eight-inch dagger while he and his then seven-month-pregnant wife were asleep. He said he lunged at the man’s throat and the man ran off, leaving behind his blade.

Rowley used that anecdote to emphasise that crime affected everyone – regardless of creed, class, and social status. Because of that, he said, Maharaj's statements ought to be rejected.

He labelled the proposal “dog whistling” and called on his supporters to reject the notion of crime and criminality linked to race, with one targeting the other.

Rowley again rejected an invitation to meet with Persad-Bissessar and former police commissioner-turned-politician Gary Griffith on crime solutions. Griffith had proposed the meeting,but Rowley said no to it last Friday.

Rowley said the government would win the fight against crime but not through meeting with people who are part of the problem, as part of the solution.

He said, “I have to watch the country's Opposition Leader calling on me to meet with her and Gary Griffith to fight crime,” to which the crowd shouted “No” in response.

He continued: “Let me tell you something today. In the fight against crime, the PNM is prepared to work with anybody, any organisation that seriously wants to fight crime. But we are not going to sit down with people who are going to commit crime in the name of fighting crime and then say they are fighting crime.”

Rowley also rubbished the idea of splitting the Ministry of National Security into two, as suggested by Persad-Bissessar in June 2020. The Opposition Leader then proposed the ministries of Home Affairs and Defence as an alternative.

The Prime Minister said countries with such ministries were ones with enemies seeking to invade, unlike Trinidad and Tobago.