Tonight, the commissioner of police is reacting that characterization. He's saying the police officers did the only thing they could in an impossibly dangerous and unpredictable situation. He held a press briefing a few hours ago and referred to the video which he says demonstrates the clear, present, and non negotiable danger facing the police:
Chester Williams, Commissioner Of Police
"I saw a video that is all over social media already that depicts exactly what happened so it's not about the police version it is more about what the video depicts and from what I saw we have a person who the police were in pursuit due to complaints that were made to the police about him, he was cornered on the bridge, by some police officers who sought to detain him while they were doing so he moved towards one of the police officers. Who was in plain clothes, the police officer quite professionally, and calmly stepped backwards and first fired one shot to one leg. The person continued to advance to the police with the knife, the police again exercising great restraint considering his life to be in danger, and he again fired another shot to the other leg. That still did not neutralize the individual. I don't know if he was under drugs or some substance but after the second shot to the other leg, he continued to advance in a more aggressive manner to the police with a big knife in his left hand as you can see in the video, and the police moved from the lower limbs to the upper body and fired one shot causing the person's fatal injuries. Now, I don't know what people expect of the police but let me say that the deceased person who has been identified as Fransico Ramos. If you all would go and check your archives you would see that in 2013 he was convicted of attempted murder after he viciously stabbed a person on Banak street. In 2021, last year, he was again charged with the stabbing of another individual and in that same incident when he was, when the police had gone to arrest him, he swung at the police with a machete. Thankfully the policeman was quite fit and versatile. He avoided the blades of that machete. If not he would have killed the policeman last year and then here we are now in 2022, the same violent individual again with a knife charging at police officers, as far as I can see the police did what he could have done in the circumstances and we have since ordered a criminal and an internal investigation just to go through to look at all the evidence and everything and when the criminal investigation is done, the file will be sent to the DPP office for a determination to ascertain if in fact the DPP will be satisfied that the police acted in self-defence."
