Dying teen forgives cop, but refuses to forfeit reputation
... asks relatives to fight for justice
AS HE lay on his deathbed, 18-year-old Tyrone ‘TJ’ McDonald expressed forgiveness to the policeman who shot him, but made one final request of his family to seek justice on his behalf as he maintained his innocence.
Tyrone succumbed to injuries at the Spanish Town Hospital last Wednesday, two weeks and three days after he was shot in controversial circumstances by the police in an area known as Gulf in Gregory Park, St Catherine.
Mcdonald, a past student of Ascot High School in the parish, died leaving his mother, siblings and an unborn child.
His sister Aliyha Dawkins regrets waking Mcdonald that fateful Sunday morning when his friends came to the house and asked for him.
“Mi get a call say mi bredda get shot … . Mi never really break down yet, but the next call, mi start bawl. Mi did a blame myself say a mi call him. Mi and di police catch up and him say that wrong, mi can’t bad up the police,” she said tearfully.
Dawkins said that the police failed to get immediate medical attention for her brother.
An injured Mcdonald was seen in dialogue with the police before residents blasted the police team for not moving swiftly to take the injured teen to the hospital.
On the day of the shooting, the police reported that a team was fired upon by two men while on patrol. They said the men ran on to premises and they gave chase and returned the fire, hitting one of the men.
“Dem have him down there fi a length a time. If the people never come down pon dem and say, ‘A likkle pickney unno shoot’, a suh dem put him in a the jeep … . Dem nuh recover a gun, so we a question it say, ‘Which shootout?’” Dawkins said.
She said that her brother went to a shop and was caught up in the shooting.
“Him say, ‘Mi sister, mi want unno get justice for me. Mi want unno defend me.’ Him look pon one a di police and say, ‘Mi want unno protect mi mother and sister, please’,” she said.
Separate probes have been launched by the Independent Commission of Investigations and the Inspectorate and Professional Standards Oversight Bureau into the incident.
Dawkins said that Mcdonald received three shots in the region of his abdomen.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
“Him did a improve. Him did a talk so well. Mi turn to him and say, ‘Yuh still believe in a dem (police)?’ and him say, ‘Mi sister, everybody do make mistake’ … . We go Hundred Man (Greater Portmore Police Station) and dem tell we say dem nuh have no charge on him,” she said, adding that Mcdonald was under police guard.
The teen’s mother, Paula Mcdonald, said that the family has been unable to get an update into the probe into the shooting as whenever they have sought audience with the cop who was at the helm of the operation, they are not accommodated.
“Until this moment, no police come and say anything to us,” she lamented.“He was everything to me – mi baby, my friend, my all,” she told The Gleaner while wearing two memorial buttons emblazoned with images of her son.
The grieving mother said that the hospital had called to say that Mcdonald pulled the tubes from his nose as he was allegedly being accused by the cops of firing at the police team.
“The whole time Tuesday (the day before he died), him tell we say dem tek him off drip, so him nah get no fuel and him dehydrated and him a go give up because him can’t tek it no more,” she said, adding that her son said they connected the tubes because they knew she was coming.
The family was in the process of applying for a transfer to another hospital when he died.
He had also told his family that he wanted to see his pregnant girlfriend and would like her to do an ultrasound to determine the sex of their unborn child. That was not to be.
They were devastated when they got the call from the Spanish Town Hospital that he died.