The Tribune

By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

Private security firms are urging the Government to “step it up a bit” and examine the law and regulations governing whether they can use firearms and non-lethal weapons to protect themselves and clients.

Paul Jones, the Ministry of National Security’s legal advisor, told the Private Security Awareness and Protection Seminar that, while “every person has a right to defend themselves”, the Inquiry Agents and Security Guards Act and regulations stipulate the use of force must be both “reasonable” and “justifiable”. However, he also added that the use of force by security guards “must not extend to a blow or a wound”.

“There are situations when people will challenge you. And so you have a right, in a reasonable way, because whatever we do involving force, it must be, first of all, justified, and secondly, it must be reasonable in the circumstances,” Mr Jones said. “But whatever the law says, it also goes on to say that whatever force you use, if you have to use force, must not extend to a blow or a wound.

“So you don’t go stabbing up nobody. You don’t go punching nobody’s teeth or blacking their eye. It must not extend to that. So let me go back here to the law. So a person may justify the use of force for the defence of property or possession. That’s what you do, right? Property or possession. Or for overcoming an obstruction to the exercise of any legal right. What legal right? The legal right that your employer gave you.

“How do you know if it’s necessary? I’ll tell you,” he added. “You cannot, and would not, have been able to achieve your job unless you would have taken the steps that you need to overcome their resistance at a particular time.

“But it’s a subjective view. You don’t do that in every case. It’s subjective. It must come from you. And, in fact, if you don’t make this step, then perhaps they may not only overcome you, they may take you out, and you don’t want that. And you have to be firm and resolute on what it is you do and what you do according to law.”

This triggered discussion on whether Bahamian security guards should carry weapons, including firearms, tasers and pepper spray - varying lethal and non-lethal accessories - given the potential threats they, their clients and the latter’s assets face from increasingly well-armed criminals who are prepared to use force.

One attendee said security guards protecting properties containing money and other valuables may need a taser, or pepper spray, adding that while not every officer needs to have those weapons a select few trained in their use should do so.

Apart from protecting valuable assets, another attendee said some guards work in and near dangerous neighbourhoods. He said those who are often the first on the scene during an incident are frequently reduced to a “watchman”, adding: “If I can’t preserve my life first, how can I preserve somebody else?”

Raquel Munnings, director of finance at ICS of The Bahamas, urged the Ministry of National Security to “step it up a bit” after attending a conference of independent armoured vehicle operators in the US.

“We found that, over there, I don’t know how many of you would have attended as well,  but that don’t exist. The shotguns, they don’t exist,” she said. “They only use sidearms. And so we’re really, really, really third world when it comes to that. And I think you guys have go to step it up a bit.”

Some attendees revealed that with retail stores selling pepper spray they take that to mean that they can purchase it for use. “We have no inquiry agent or security guard permitted to carry a firearm or any type of offensive weapon, and I’ve been checking the penal code, trying to find out what is an offensive weapon, and the only thing they do talk about is firearm,” one said.

“But the point I want to make, whether it be known or not, is that Outdoor Sportsmen sells pepper spray - and has a licence to sell it - and tasers. So I’m looking at the rationale that government has granted them a licence, they sell it to the general public and, as a security officer, you are a private citizen. I was thinking I was supposed to go see authorities over here because if you have a licence to sell it, that means I’m supposed to carry it.”

Mr Jones expressed an interest in professionals potentially coming “from overseas and otherwise to even present equipment for you guys, so that we can make some things more in-house as we move to professionalise the service”. Virgil Thurston, from the National Firearms Association, explained that the organisation has lethal and non-lethal weapons as well as training services.

Another attendee, though, questioned if security companies wanted “to take on that liability” and are “prepared to take on that risk in serving your client” from guards shooting, or injuring, other persons.