NEW
Thank you for reading this post. Don't forget to subscribe!
Representatives of the US Embassy in Kingston have stepped in to assist Howard Johnson, a US citizen whose 15-year-old son was shot by a member of the security forces during a joint police-military operation in Seaview Gardens, St Andrew last Thursday.
“I made a report to the US Embassy and a representative of the US Embassy visited the hospital, and spoke with the hospital administration.
They (the Embassy) are fully involved, they are active, and I appreciate their intervention because the surgery moved up from next week Friday to today,” a grateful Johnson told Talkupditingsdem News on Saturday.
The teenager, who is vacationing in Jamaica from the US where he resides, was shot in the thigh.
“From all indications, he was shot while he was running.
He had heard shots and he was scared, so he was running home, and one member of the JCF [Jamaica Constabulary Force] shot my unarmed son,” the father of four alleged.
“The bullet entered from the back of his leg, come through him and shattered his cellphone in the front of his pocket,” he added.
The teenager, whose name is being withheld, is on the honour roll at his school in the US and is an aspiring footballer who lives in Bronx, New York.
He said that once his son’s surgery has been completed, he will be seeking answers from the JCF about the events that transpired the evening that his son was injured.
“I plan to go to Hunts Bay [Police Station] to speak to the Superintendent of Police because that is where the reports exist as to what happened that day.
No one from the police force has contacted me except INDECOM (Independent Commission of Investigations], but I am yet to hear anything official from the police, the Federation, mi no talk to nobody,” he said.
Johnson also intends to seek legal representation in the matter.
“I just want some answers,” Johnson told Talkupditingsdem News.
After the shooting incident last week, INDECOM had said that the security forces reported an engagement with at least one, possibly two males, one of whom is reported as allegedly pointing a firearm at the members of the security forces.
No weapon was reported to INDECOM by investigators as being recovered from the scene or the injured boy.
