The mother of the teenager of Vieux-Fort who was recently shot dead by police says she wants more information from them regarding the incident.

“All that the police told me was that it was a police shooting,” Bethany Jn Pierre, the mother of the deceased told Loop News, adding that she was only told so the day after the shooting.

Ajani Emmanus Charlery, 16, a Form-5 student of the Micoud Secondary School, was shot by police on Friday, January 28, about 10 pm during a police operation on Cemetery Road, Vieux-Fort. The incident occurred about 100 metres from his home at Bacaderre.

The distressed mother says that contrary to a Royal Saint Lucia Police Force statement on the incident saying that the police had reached out to the family to offer them support, Jn Pierre said she has not been given assistance from the police in any form or fashion.

Ajani Emmanus Charley, shooting victim

Jn Pierre says she strongly believes that there is something fishy about the shooting. However, she says her only child, who turned 16 last December 26, was not a saint.

She said she had constantly warned him about his companions but he would not listen. “He was stubborn. Everybody used to talk to him, including his friends and school officials,” Jn Pierre said.

“He was always suspended from school,” she added.

According to Jn Pierre, on the day of her son’s demise, he had just come from buying something in a shop, and she thought he was on the balcony when he had left the house without her knowledge.

She said the family is taking his death very hard.

The police statement on the incident read in part, “About 10:00 pm on Friday, January 28, 2022, sixteen-year-old Ajani Charlery was fatally wounded during a police operation, along Cemetery Road in Vieux Fort. Officers, acting on information relating to the location of a seventeen-year-old suspect in a report of Burglary, where a substantial number of items were stolen from a business in Vieux Fort, initiated patrols in the town.

The seventeen-year-old who was previously in police custody and escaped, was soon identified by officers, accompanied by three other males. Officers approached the four males who ran away, however, officers were able to quickly detain three of the males.

The final male who attempted to evade arrest was shot during the process of apprehending him. He was immediately transported by officers, to the nearest hospital for care, where he was later pronounced dead by a medical practitioner.”