The fa­ther of En­rique Gar­cia, an off-du­ty sol­dier killed by po­lice af­ter a pur­port­ed shoot-out, is deny­ing that pho­tos cir­cu­lat­ing of a man show­ing gang signs is his son.

Gar­cia, 25, was killed when po­lice in­ter­cept­ed his red Hon­da Vezel in Jairas­ingh Vil­lage, San­gre Grande, on Sun­day af­ter­noon.

Po­lice claimed some­one in the ve­hi­cle shot at the of­fi­cers, prompt­ing them to re­turn fire.

Gar­cia and an­oth­er man who was in the car, Shyein Tran­coso, were killed.

Po­lice found an AR-15 as­sault ri­fle in the ve­hi­cle.

Gar­cia’s fa­ther, John Gar­cia, dis­put­ed the of­fi­cial re­port of the in­ci­dent put for­ward by po­lice as he doubt­ed that his son opened fire on po­lice.

He con­tend­ed that Gar­cia did not have a crim­i­nal record and was fo­cused on mak­ing a liv­ing for him­self.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, a pho­to of a man said to be Gar­cia pos­ing with oth­er men mak­ing gang signs cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia.

Gar­cia was iden­ti­fied as one of the men wear­ing cam­ou­flage-pat­terned short pants.

A video was al­so shared, which showed a man, be­lieved to be Shyein Tran­coso, fir­ing an AR-15 as­sault ri­fle in a forest­ed area; how­ev­er, this re­mained un­ver­i­fied up to late yes­ter­day.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, Gar­cia firm­ly dis­missed claims that one of the men in the pho­to was his son.

He urged the pub­lic to be re­spon­si­ble when shar­ing im­ages and videos with­out ver­i­fy­ing the au­then­tic­i­ty of the claims be­ing made.

“That’s not my son.

“When I went to see his body, that’s not him at all. All be­hind his head is a mess and mash-up.”

Com­ment­ing on the shoot­ing death of Mustapha Gu­lab, who was al­so killed by po­lice on the Cu­napo, South­ern Main Road, San­gre Grande, on Thurs­day night, close to where his son was killed, Gar­cia said it was con­cern­ing.

“I feel­ing a kind of way, be­cause if you all kill two (peo­ple) on Sun­day and again an­oth­er per­son got killed by po­lice days lat­er in the same gen­er­al area, it makes me won­der what is go­ing on there in the back of that road.”

En­rique Gar­cia is ex­pect­ed to be laid to rest at Bethel World Out­reach Min­istries in Ari­ma next Thurs­day.