The Editor, Sir:

The police are given powers under our laws, primarily provided for in Section 13 of the Constabulary Force Act, to "apprehend any person found committing any offence or whom they may reasonably suspect of having committed any offence". In addition to these powers, he has the right, while seeking to apprehend his suspect, to be protected under the law relating to self-defence.

Public confidence is easily eroded where he abuses one or other of the powers given to him by law when treating with suspects. A policeman cannot appoint himself as apprehender, judge and executioner all combined. No matter how difficult the circumstance, justice requires that it is only where life and limb are endangered that he is entitled to use lethal force. Assuming that all said so far represents a correct statement of the law, the recent shooting in St Ann was nothing short of the abuse of power.

Police's account

Listen to the Constabulary Communication Network reports in a crowd and you will hear members of the public being able to recite, unaided, the police's account word for word: " ... The police came under gunfire, returned fire and a loaded pistol was taken from the body of one of the gunmen."

Do you recall the shooting of two senior members of the Flankers community in St James in 2005? David Bacchas, 63, and Cecil Brown, 65, were alleged to have fired on the police who returned the fire killing the innocent citizens. Also, do you recall that a car with workers in the Corporate Area heading home happened to experience a "backfire" from the car's exhaust system and it was laced with bullets from the police who claimed that there was a "shoot-out"?

'Mistake' situation

In Lodge, St Ann, last week, the police repeated the said "mistake". An infant was shot and narrowly escaped being killed.

Where the occupant of a motor car, in similar circumstances, happens to have young men as its occupants, and they miraculously survive to be charged with shooting with intent and illegal possession of firearm, it becomes a defence lawyer's nightmare. The situation worsens where the allegation is that a gun was "recovered".

Sometimes a young man may become lucky, as in the case of a police officer, who recklessly used a "recycled firearm" and planted it on him. The officer, who had charged another young man previously with this firearm, gave a statement that he took it from this "new" accused.

His misdeed was uncovered by an astute lawyer in the second case. The lawyer discovered in her research that the gun in her case bore a serial number similar to the gun in the said police officer's previous case. The culprit officer got wind of the finding and fled while the DPP was pondering a ruling against him for perverting the course of justice.

We have in the Jamaica Constabulary Force, officers who are prepared to manufacture a witness; put a strange gun in the hand of a survivor or deceased "gunman", and those who will invent a "shoot-out" where no fire arm is recovered from the dead man as his cronies "fled with his firearm".

It is frightening to ponder how many men are now spending time behind bars as a result of lies told to repair wrongful shootings by trigger-happy officers. The mother of the injured infant in Lodge, St Ann, in her emotional outburst, did not hesitate to conclude that some officers are worse than gunmen. Isn't this a sad indictment on those sworn to keep the peace?

Can we please ask that a computerised register of firearm serial numbers be kept for all firearms alleged to have been recovered? This computer should be programmed to sound a siren where there is a repeat number entered. Oh! I have just recalled that at times, the reports are that the serial number of the recovered firearm was "erased".

I am, etc.,

BERT SAMUELS

bert.samuels@gmail.com

Kingston