By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe says that if police officers are confronted by criminals with weapons, he expects officers to defend themselves.

Likewise, he said, those officers will also defend the public.

He made the remark yesterday at Cabinet while putting into context earlier comments he had made telling Bahamians to brace for more police-involved shootings.

Mr Munroe said those comments were made as part of a wider conversation on how the government intends to address crime.

“As I’ve said, how we address crime is in vision 2040,” Mr Munroe told reporters.

“The first step is to seek to divert youth at risk from a life of crime. If you don’t succeed at that, some of them do make it to a life of crime and as I’ve said, the diversionary programmes haven’t been very robust over the last four-and-a-half years. We’re seeking to get them back up to speed in the same degree of energy that they were previously.

“You all document every day that people go around thinking that it’s normal, ordinary to go up and shoot somebody. Last night it was 20 times with a handgun.

He added: “If that individual comes into a confrontation with the police, I don’t think any reasonable citizen should expect the police to permit themselves to be shot, killed, or injured. So, if in fact you have a larger number of people engaging in that behaviour, the police will be having resources to up saturation patrols.

“So, if probability tells you it’s more probable to come across a vehicle with armed police as it has happened with the gentleman in Golden Gates who fired on the police and was killed, the armed robber the other day who produced a gun and the police had fatally shot him. If you confront the police with firearms, I do not expect the officers to risk their life and limb. I expect them to protect themselves and to protect the public.”

A man suspected of robbing another man was shot and killed by police early Friday afternoon. Superintendent of Police Audley Peters told reporters at the scene that shortly after noon, officers received reports of an alleged robbery in the Soldier Road area.

He noted the police control room received a report that a person on Soldier Road was being robbed by a “chap” and the control room sent out a description of that suspect and the officers responded.

“They came through Goggle Eye Road, which is off Soldier Road, and while on Goggle Eye Road, they saw a chap fitting the description.”

Supt Peters said after being stopped by police, the man “produced a firearm and engaged” officers. He added that police, “being aware of the threat to their lives”, discharged their weapons, ultimately hitting the suspect.

The minister argued the debate of whether police should be armed appears to have ceased, thus proof it is understood the need for officers to have weapons.

Mr Munroe said: “Unless the public believes the police should permit themselves to be fired on by people with firearms, shot and killed, then the public should understand that the reason that you arm the police is to meet the threats that they meet today. I have said in my lifetime, and I’m 54, in my lifetime there was a big debate about whether police should have guns at all. (There) used to be a debate about the police having guns at all and then about police having guns on Bay Street. We don’t debate that anymore.

“It is clear that the development of this country has made it such that nobody questions the need for police to be armed in order to discharge their duties. I just don’t want the public, in expecting a robust police response, when they get it, to then think that the police should somehow risk their lives unnecessarily. That is not something that they are called on to do.

“They are called on to risk their lives by putting themselves between a gunman and us, but they are not called to risk their lives not returning fire if they’re fired on,” Mr Munroe said.