Minister in the Office of the Attorney General with responsibility for Crime Prevention, Corey Lane has strongly condemned vigilante justice after a St Joseph man was beaten to death by residents following an alleged hit-and-run incident in Jackson, St Michael earlier this week.
Pedro Caddle was killed on Monday morning when men from the community chased and attacked him after he allegedly struck an elderly woman with his car and attempted to flee on foot.
Lane said there was no place for citizens taking the law into their own hands.
“The Barbados Police Service is there, we have the courts of Barbados, who’s really supposed to be adjudicated on these matters. It is not the place for any citizen, regardless of the situation to be judge, jury and executioner on any event,” Lane said.
He said citizens should have simply detained Caddle instead of resorting to violence: “Even if they had held him until the right agency, which is the Barbados Police Service arrived, I think that would have been the right thing to do.”
Lane reiterated the need for enhanced crime prevention measures, including monitoring potential threats.
“We seek to get a database of all these at-risk individuals who may be on the radar, what we call a hit list, so that we can intervene beforehand so that we can be as proactive as possible,” the minister said.
“I think it’s important that we have mechanisms to monitor social media to have constant contact with communities to know where the threats are, where a person may be at risk for retaliation,” he added.
The minister urged citizens to familiarise themselves with proper procedures for conducting citizen’s arrests and involving justices of the peace in similar situations.
(LG)
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