Police shoot and injure 16 year-old
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Tuesday April 15, 2014 13:05
Police say the incident involved the theft of a laptop and a cellphone for which the victim and another teen were detained and subsequently released.
However, it has now emerged that the six teenagers involved in the incident were innocently returning from watching a football match when two police officers who were patrolling the area, opened fired on them.
The teenager was wounded in the right arm.
Yesterday, the victim’s father, Zachariah Lephogole said he got the shock of his life when his son did not arrive home on Friday. He said that his son could have been arrested with neighbourhood peers who said they had managed to escape during the incident.
“I was told that my son could not escape as he fell down. As any concerned parent I decided to seek help from the nearest police station as I wanted to open a missing person’s case because I was not sure where my son might be.
“I waited for more than an hour at Broadhurst Police Station where the police contacted all police stations around Gaborone with no luck,” Lephogole explained.
He said his wife eventually located their son at Sir Seretse Khama police cells, where they found him with an injured arm.
“He told me that he had been shot in the arm and had to endure the pain as the police refused to take him to the hospital,” said Lephogole.
“Imagine the pain he was sufering through all those hours as we only managed to take him to the clinic at 2pm on Saturday.
“I was also angered by the fact that the inspectors who were on duty contradicted each other. One claimed that the boys were caught with a suspected stolen cellphone while another said officers had found the phone on the ground near the boys,” said the father of the victim.
Lephogole said police claimed to have taken the young victim to a clinic, “although they presented wrong birthdates and the medical report showed wrong injured arm”.
The teenage victim told Mmegi he was returning from watching a football match on Friday when a private car approached them from behind and fired two shots at them without warning.
He said on realising the assailants were police officers, the teenagers panicked and ran away. He said he and another boy were unable to escape and were arrested and taken to SSKAP cells.
“I urged the police to take me to the hospital as I was injured but they refused to assist me. Fortunately, my parents came the following day and took me to the clinic. Unfortunately, they refused to release my friend and told my parents that they would not let him go,” the teary teenager narrated his ordeal.
Police spokesperson, Dipheko Motube, confirmed the incident but could not comment on the nature of arrest.
“I can confirm that the police made an arrest after a robbery was reported. During the robbery it was reported that a cellphone and a laptop had been stolen.
“The police have since been able to recover the cellphone which was suspected to have been stolen. I however, cannot comment on the nature of arrest,” he said.
Motube said police investigations into the matter are on going, whilst the boys have since been released from police custody.