At what stage can police use ‘force’ or kill when effecting a LAWFUL arrest?

The police have the powers of arrest and can effect it with warrant where it is required by law and without warrant where necessary because if an offence is committed in the presence of a policeman, he can effect arrest without warrant so that the accused will not escape.

However, our campaign is that the police must effect a LAWFULL arrest.

Where a person has committed a felony; an offence upon conviction he can be sentenced to death or imprisonment to not less than three years, to prevent escape, a policeman can use force that is reasonably necessary.  However, where the suspect engages police in shootout or the offence is punishable by death or not less than 7 years imprisonment and there is no other means of arresting the offender who probably was shooting at the police, the police may kill. We must remind our police officer reading this that this is not a license for the police to kill innocent people as policemen too can be charged for murder or manslaughter depending on the circumstances of the case.

For example, if a suspect is trying to escape after committing murder without endangering the life of the arresting officer in anyway, shooting to kill the suspect will amount to at least offence of manslaughter. The reason being that the suspect might have committed the offence in self defence or under serious provocation but tried to escape out of fear. Killing him in the process only to find out later that he would have been innocent of the crime would be unfair.

As a law abiding citizen, when the police are effecting lawful arrest, do not engage them in physical brawl. Just try and reach your lawyer. Your lawyer is trained to help you in a situation like this especially in a circumstance where the arrest is unlawful.