Police Have Every Right To Shoot To Kill People Who Threaten Their Lives As They Make Arrest

A press­ing issue which is affect­ing the rule of law in Jamaica is the pub­lic’s inter­fer­ence as police offi­cers try to make law­ful arrests. The inter­fer­ence has grad­u­at­ed sys­tem­i­cal­ly from trolling and taunts to actu­al phys­i­cal help to the per­son being arrested.

Given the most ide­al set of cir­cum­stances, the task of effect­ing an arrest is fraught with dan­ger and risk. An offi­cer does not know how the sus­pect will respond to los­ing his or her freedom.
As such the officer/​s has to con­tin­gency plan for all even­tu­al­i­ties just to make that arrest. The added dan­ger of a poten­tial out­sider who has no busi­ness inter­fer­ing with this most law­ful admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice is rather dangerous.
The dan­ger of a mob inter­fer­ing with this process should elic­it the most extreme of response from the officer/​s to ensure that their lives and safe­ty are guaranteed.

For years this most dan­ger­ous of prac­tices have endured yet the gross­ly incom­pe­tent so-called high com­mand has done absolute­ly noth­ing to edu­cate the pub­lic of the per­ils of inter­fer­ing in the admin­is­tra­tion of justice.
The Legislature has done absolute­ly noth­ing to make it extreme­ly painful under the law to inter­fere in arrests.

The new occu­pant of 103 Old-Hope Road is for all intents and pur­pos­es mute on this sub­ject, as he is on all oth­er sub­jects to do with the job which was thrust upon him. You can­not fix what you do not know about, you can­not fix what you have no con­cept of and so Antony Anderson should be no more ridiculed than the woe­ful igno­ra­mus­es who pre­ced­ed him.
In all fair­ness, it would be unfair to expect this inter­lop­er to have a seri­ous solu­tion to this rather crit­i­cal issue when his pre­de­ces­sors who rose through the ranks did noth­ing before him.
Nevertheless, this prob­lem to police offi­cers needs a solu­tion immediately.

SOLUTION

So I ask all police offi­cers who have to make arrests to re-exam­ine what your pow­ers are under the JCF Act.

Constabulary force Act.

38. If any per­son shall assault, obstruct, hin­der or resist,
or use any threat­en­ing or abu­sive and calum­nious language
or aid or incite any oth­er per­son to assault, obstruct, hinder,
or resist any Constable in the exe­cu­tion of his duty, every
such offend­er shall be liable to a fine not exceed­ing two
thou­sand dollars.

There is no right to inter­fere, even if an hon­est and rea­son­able mis­take about the law­ful­ness of the action is made unless there is immi­nent dan­ger of injury or urgency of a kind which requires an imme­di­ate decision.
If you are mak­ing an arrest and you are being hin­dered, it is up to you to deter­mine the threat lev­el to your­self and take appro­pri­ate action.
You have every right if you believe that your life is in dan­ger to use lethal force to repel those who would step in to impede your abil­i­ty to exe­cute your law­ful duties.

If you are an offi­cer who is will­ing to risk death and or the escape of your pris­on­er maybe the job is not for you. These anar­chists who are always on the prowl to mil­i­tate against Police will think rather seri­ous­ly when a seri­ous police offi­cer dis­patch­es one of them with seri­ous precision.
You have every right to do your job and go home to your fam­i­lies. You get to decide whether you will allow mob rule to take your life for doing your job.
It is that simple.