Sascha Wilson
The mother of a Penal teenager who was fatally shot by the police on Tuesday night is calling for a full-scale investigation.
Justin Pegus, who recently turned 18, was shot at the home of his girlfriend at Latchoos Road, Penal.
While the police remained tight-lipped about the details of the incident, Pegus' mother Natalie Pegus said an officer told her that her son had a gun.
She recalled that sometime before 10 pm she received a call from his girlfriend. She told her that the police were at her house and they had ordered everyone upstairs. But, they kept her Pegus downstairs.
She said her son's girlfriend told her that she heard gunshot and to call the ambulance. Due to the curfew, however, the mother had to go through the channels to get police permission to leave her home.
When she arrived at the Siparia Health Facility after midnight, she saw her son's dead body.
He had a gunshot wound to his arm and the side of his back.
She said, "My sister and my second boy saw him first when he died and I went down after I remember asking the police...I say what really happen with my son? The policeman sit down and tell me he had a firearm."
While her son was never arrested or charged with any criminal offence, she said she kept hearing rumours that her son was wanted for robberies.
However, she went to the police station and even spoke to officers and had other people inquire on her behalf, but the police never indicated that he was suspected of being involved in any crime.
"I'm not saying my son was a saint yuh know, but they did not have to shoot him like that," she lamented.
The grief-stricken mother said her son had begged the police to call her.
"Why allyuh shoot him? Why allyuh put him in a room by himself? His girlfriend heard him bawling, he was saying 'call meh mother. They going to shoot meh'."
She was told that the police took a long time before taking him to the health centre.
"If they did carry him to the hospital in time he would ah make it," she lamented.
She did not know what division or station the police came from as the Penal police claimed they were unaware of the incident.
She said her son was attending Penal Secondary but since the pandemic, he had not really logged on to any online classes.
When Guardian Media reached out to a senior officer at the South Western Division he said that the TTPS would issue a statement on the incident before the end of the day.
Up to late last evening, however, none was forthcoming.