NATIONAL Security Minister Dr Horace Chang on Friday received a resounding round of applause from more than 200 police personnel when he again expressed support for cops who kill criminals attempting to shoot at them.

Despite heavy backlash from human rights groups when he made a similar statement in 2022, Chang appeared determined not to back down from his stance on the topic.

“The police are professionals on the road doing a routine job, and you can only imagine the kind of mentality that would make a man ride up on a bike and look at a young Jamaican doing his duty and try to kill him. I say to the police here that: ‘Anyone who does that or attempt to do that, the only time they should have left on this side of the surface is the time it takes to do the post-mortem,’ ” said the tough-talking Chang during his address at Friday’s staging of the Lasco/JCF Saluting Our Heroes awards ceremony at AC Hotel Kingston.

“Put them away; they have no place in society,” the minister added, telling cops to make sure they follow standard operating procedures “all the time” by making contact, and taking adequate cover during combat with criminals.

In September last year Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) and other human rights groups blasted the minister for suggesting that the men and women of the JCF shoot to kill when confronted by armed criminals. In a news release at that time JFJ said the utterances of the minister which suggested a de facto shoot-to-kill policy is encouraged, must be rejected by all Jamaicans.

“While JFJ stands with members of the security forces defending themselves, it is to be done in keeping with documented local and international use of force and firearms policies, as well as codes of conduct for law enforcement officials which guide the professional and ethical behaviour of the police. The organisation also cautions that claims of evading of arrest, suspicion of crime cannot justify the use of lethal force,” the JFJ said in September 2022.

Even after numerous calls from different circles at the time for Chang to apologise and resign, the minister repeatedly refused.

One human rights group that had condemned the minister’s recommendation in 2022 was Stand up for Jamaica. Executive Director Carla Gullotta said on Saturday that the minister’s most recent comments were “actually worse than the first time”.

“I am astonished by comments like this. Jamaica has a problem with crime and violence but proposing that the police killl somebody on the spot if they are doing something wrong is not the answer to solve the problem of crime. We should be honest, strong and committed enough to look where the roots of the problems are, not spreading more blood on top of blood.

“A sentence like this just gives a sense of revenge from the State, which is failing to find an alternate avenue to deal with violence. We all don’t want to see so much crime and violence in Jamaica but please consider whether those so-called solutions are offering a way out or just an increase of dead people on the street. I really wonder why we are not honest enough to see the reason why we have produced this monster. Statements like this enforce the idea of eye for an eye – and as I say, the system is failing to propose something really efficient.

“This strong sentence can only try to cover the fact that not much has been done to look at prevention, jobs, programmes, education, and poor parenting. Nobody is addressing any of [these] problems. Let’s shoot each other in the middle of the road? If this is the final decision it is going to be a jungle. No well-thinking person can see this as a serious proposal,” Gullotta told the Sunday Observer.