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CRIMINOLOGIST Daurius Figueira believes that introducing stand-your-ground legislation could fuel racial tensions in TT.
The government is considering bringing the legislation in a model similar to what exists in Florida, US, to allow for better access to Firearm User’s Licences (FULs).
There have been arguments both for and against the policy from several quarters since it was announced by the UNC during the campaign for the April 28 general election.
The Florida law essentially says an individual not engaged in unlawful activity who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be, has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand their ground and use force, deadly force if deemed necessary, to prevent death or physical harm to himself/herself or to prevent the commission of a forcible entry.
In an interview with Newsday on June 6, Figueira said although the government has not yet revealed what aspect of the law in Florida it is going to embrace “we have to address the Florida reality and compare it to our reality here.”
He added, “When we look at the law in Florida we have to keep track of all the amendments that have been made to it and the court decisions that have emerged from the Appeal Court, the Florida Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court.”
But Figueira said the “sad reality” is that in Florida, “people are using stand-your-ground as a self-defence mechanism to cover the fact that they are killing people because they are not white.”
He said the shooting death of African American teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, was a case in point.
Martin, who was 17 at the time, had accompanied his father to visit the father’s fiancée at her townhouse at The Retreat at Twin Lakes.
Martin was walking back to her townhouse from a convenience store on the evening of February 26, when George Zimmerman, a member of the community watch, spotted him and reported him as suspicious to the Sanford police.
A confrontation reportedly occurred between the two and Martin was shot in the chest.
Zimmerman later claimed he shot Martin in self-defence and was not charged at the time. The police also said there was no evidence to refute his claim of self-defence and Florida’s stand-your-ground law prohibited them from arresting or charging him.
Owing to intense national attention, Zimmerman was eventually charged and tried but he was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter in July 2013.
Figueira said, “Florida has this grave reputation – and this is where Trayvon Martin came in – because Mr (George) Zimmerman (who had shot Martin) was playing policeman in a public space that was not his home.
“And because Zimmerman felt he was a policeman because of stand your ground and he had no precept but he had a gun, he wants to brace Trayvon Martin to ask him who he is and where he is going.
“Just because it is a little African child with a hoodie on, that constituted criminality for him. Trayvon Martin is unarmed and he (Zimmerman) proceeds to shoot him and the jury sets him free.”
He fears that given TT’s multi-ethnic society, “some people may walk around feeling that they would be given the right to police public spaces where they can go around with their FUL in their waist and their stand your ground and want to tell you what you must do and must not do in a public space and to precipitate conflict, pull the gun on you and say self-defence because in their view, you were coming to attack them. This time you have nothing in your hand and you on the ground dead.”
Figueira continued, “My concern is that you apply the Florida experience to Trinidad in a multiracial society with a grave race tension problem, it is going to escalate violent conflict between the races to a point where we will be faced with a racial conflagration in the country because you going to come with your FUL in a public space, shoot down somebody and you are going to get retaliation from the blood relatives and friends and family of the person you put shots on. That is my fear.”
He does not see the policy as championing the country’s diversity.
“I see it doing nothing for us to solve, once and for all, this problem of racial tension in this country and for us to get together and live as one people in the diversity. I am only seeing a heightening of aggression.”
Figueira said he was already concerned about citizens, who “live by the straight and narrow” and are constantly on the lookout for the “bad boys.
“Now, we have to be on the lookout for people who feel that they could police me because we race different to them own.”
He wondered what would become of the law-abiding citizens.
“I done see already that the day you pass any stand your ground laws in Trinidad like in Florida, I am not even going in anybody yard. I eh going in nobody house. Anybody who wants to see me have to come in my house. And I only going in public spaces that under strict control by the ownership.”
Advising the government to carefully consider the merits and demerits of the policy in the interest of all citizens, Figueira observed lawyers have made “a series of counter proposals,” some of whom believe that stand-your-ground could be applied strictly for home invasions.
“We have to explore fully if we have the right to defend ourselves under common law. So therefore, we have to go to all the judgements all the way to the Privy Council and properly discern this thing legally and then instruct the police now and say this is what we expect from you.
“So a lot of research has to be done and a lot consultation because everybody has the right to express their opinions on if only the threat we feel from it.”
He said his brother, who has been a Florida resident for many years, is “mortally afraid” of living in the state.
“He is paranoid about stand-your-ground.”
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