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The Dominica Police Force has firmly denied claims of illegal searches and emphasized that all law enforcement actions are carried out within the bounds of the law, with appropriate warrants or legal justification. 

Both Acting Chief of Police Lincoln Corbette and Minister for National Security Hon. Rayburn Blackmoore explained the legal framework guiding police operations, particularly in relation to search and arrest procedures.

“We do not conduct any illegal searches. None whatsoever,” declared Acting Chief Corbette. “When we conduct searches at your house, we have a warrant. When we stop you in the streets, it’s because we have information to suggest that you may have a weapon or drugs or something illegal happening.”

Corbette also rejected suggestions of selective enforcement, pointing out that police officers themselves are not above the law. “We arrested our own. We searched our own,” he said. “So, to say selective, we could have said leave the officer. But no—we searched and arrested our own.”

He explained that all house searches are based on intelligence and carried out with judicial oversight. “If a search has been conducted on your house, and you want to see a copy of the warrant, we have it. We show it to you at the house,” he said, adding that while the document may not be handed over for reading during the operation, it is always present.

Corbette also noted the legal procedures for obtaining a warrant. “We must bring the information before a magistrate or before the Chief of Police, who has the power under the Firearms Act to issue warrants,” he said. “But in short, we do not conduct any, any, any illegal searches on anybody’s premises.”

Supporting the police’s position, Minister Blackmoore pointed to various laws that empower officers to act based on reasonable suspicion.

“Under the written law the police have the authority under suspicion and reasonable cause to arrest, and to search,” he explained, citing the case Martin Anthony vs the Attorney General (2012), which he said validated the police’s right to arrest on suspicion.

He referenced Section 12, subsections 4, 5, and 6 of the Criminal Law and Prosecutors Act of 1992, which detail the authority of the police to search and arrest. He also pointed to practical examples where police may act without a warrant, such as when in pursuit of a suspect or responding to someone in distress.

“The police, under certain circumstances, can enter your home,” Blackmoore said. “If the police is in immediate pursuit of a felon and that person runs under your bed, the police have a right to run under your bed and extract that person without a warrant.”

He added, “The Drug Prevention Act and the Firearms Act also give the police the right to stop and search vehicles with reasonable suspicion.”

Addressing the tension between privacy and public safety, Minister Blackmoore acknowledged the constitutional right to privacy but stressed that the same constitution grants law enforcement the authority to act when necessary.

“We cannot have our cake and eat it. We want safer streets—we have to give something and allow the police, with reasonable cause and respect to human decency, to do their work,” he said. “As the Minister for National Security, entrusted by the Prime Minister, I will do anything to protect the public interest and to ensure that Dominica remains the safest place in the Caribbean, as it now is.”

Hon. Blackmoore called for unity and practicality in tackling crime: “We are going to need an all-encompassing effort, not only the police and the Prime Minister, but all of us, including those of us who are versed with the law. Dominica belongs to all of us, and let us do what is right to protect this country.”