00:00There have been reports of incidents over the years where police allegedly announced their arrival
00:06and without presenting warrants or identification entered the homes of people.
00:11There have also been incidents where criminals pretended to be police and people opened their homes to them.
00:17It's against this backdrop that the conversation on the Stand Your Ground proposed legislation
00:22took a turn in this direction, with people raising concerns about how they should respond.
00:28Nadina Mirage is one of them.
00:30What the bill does, in my estimation, it removes that pause from me acting.
00:37But when you have someone standing in front of you saying, I am the police, and you are unsure,
00:44I am now in that pause moment, so you have reintroduced that pause.
00:49What can be done that could facilitate me as a homeowner to remove that question
00:56so that I could act or not act with a certain amount of clarity?
01:01Is identification by the police something that could be done?
01:05What can the bill include?
01:07Minister of Legal Affairs Saddam Hussein says police have certain protocols they are supposed to follow
01:12based on the police standing orders.
01:15And the department orders of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service,
01:20when a police enters your home, there are certain protocols they must follow
01:24in terms of the proper identification of themselves.
01:28That is something that we have to reiterate.
01:32We have no control over the police service.
01:35The police service, at the end of the day, is an independent institution.
01:39Hussein says police officers are issued an identification card,
01:44in part to indicate that they are legitimate officers.
01:48No police officer should be scaling your wall or running in your house and say,
01:54you understand there are certain protocols they have to identify themselves
01:58before they enter your premises.
02:01In cases of a state of emergency which the country is presently under
02:04and will remain for at least the next three months,
02:08another challenge arises, as pointed out by one constituent of Barataria San Juan.
02:13In a state of emergency, police do not require a law enforcement,
02:19they do not require a warrant to enter your premises.
02:23In that case, what happens, I've seen someone mention,
02:27if someone comes in about police, police,
02:30none of us here know what a police ID actually looks like.
02:33That's number one.
02:33These things will be created anyway.
02:36You could go and, I mean, take a photocopy and do your stuff.
02:40None of us really know what it looks like.
02:42He notes the possibility that a police officer can be shot
02:45or, likewise, a criminal pretending to be a police officer.
02:50His question, what protection is there under the Stand Your Ground law?
02:55Hussein calls it a touchy situation.
02:58There's no one answer.
03:00It's always circumstantial.
03:04We can't say, don't let police into your home.
03:07If they are lawfully coming into your home by virtue of a warrant or so on,
03:14and the police officer is shot dead,
03:17therefore, that is an exception.
03:19You cannot be protected by the law if he's executing his lawful duties.
03:24Because we want to ensure that we also protect law enforcement.
03:29But the minister did not outline what happens where no ID or warrant is presented
03:34and a police officer is shot.
03:37Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
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