The bullet that struck 17-year-old Ricardo Mohammed entered his back, exited through his chest and he bled to death.
That was the finding of forensic pathologist Dr Valerie Alexandrov, who conducted an autopsy on the boy’s body yesterday.
Mohammed was killed while at a party in the Chaguaramas Military Museum early Sunday morning.
The police version is that an on-duty police officer seized some marijuana from one of the party-goers who then followed the officer and attempted to take his gun. It was during this struggle for the gun that the 9mm pistol discharged, hitting Mohammed, who was close by, in his back.
Party-goers however told reporters the officer had arrested the weed-smoker but did not handcuff him. They added that the man then attempted to flee from the officer (while not hand-cuffed) and it was then the officer withdrew his gun and fired at the man, missed his target and struck Mohammed.
Alexandrov spoke to the Express yesterday afternoon after completing the post mortem earlier at the Forensic Science Centre in St James.
He explained that the bullet struck the teenager’s “vascular bundle”, to the left side of his back and because it was fired from an angle it exited through his upper chest and by the time the boy was brought to hospital he had already died.
“It was not a straight angle. It was a little from the left and it travelled up before exiting his central upper chest, perforating several organs as it travelled, piercing his vascular muscles. So he died from a combination of blood loss and internal injuries,”Alexandrov said.
Secretary of the Police Social and Welfare Association Insp Michael Seales said yesterday the officer remains on active duty, “until there is a determination of the extent to which he had violated the Police Service’s use-of-force policy”.
He said when that aspect of the investigation has been determined then they would know how to proceed.
He explained the police’s operating procedure when detaining a suspect is that he or she is handcuffed to minimise harm to both the police officer and the public present, so that if the marijuana smoker at the party had been detained (according to one version of what happened) he was supposed to have been handcuffed.
Seales also explained that the investigation into what happened has already begun but from a divisional level, meaning that a senior officer within the Police Division has been appointed to investigate, and if the officer is found to have committed an infraction, the Professional Standards Bureau would be called in to investigate further.
Mohammed’s mother, Telisha Charles, yesterday slammed the police over what happened.
“Them police and them getting away with real foolishness and only God alone could deal with that. This child died for nothing,” she said.
“They kill my child! They kill my child! I want justice for this but like I will have to leave this in the hand of God himself because so many similar incidents happened to other people and no one has been held…those policemen remain out there. So why should I expect anything different?” she asked.
She confirmed she had been visited by two police officers, who explained to her what had happened. “But everybody very upset still and we are trying to be calm,” she said.
The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) yesterday declined comment. —with reporting by