Video footage ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia dis­putes a claim made by the fam­i­ly of Acki­mo Cob­ham that he was in­no­cent­ly shot by an off-du­ty po­lice­man in Mara­bel­la on Fri­day night.

Cob­ham’s rel­a­tives had chal­lenged a po­lice re­port that Cob­ham and an­oth­er per­son were shot af­ter they at­tempt­ed to rob the po­lice of­fi­cer of his ve­hi­cle. Cob­ham died on the scene and a gun was found next to his body.

How­ev­er, footage seen by Guardian Me­dia shows Cob­ham and the oth­er man run­ning up to the car which was parked in front of a house. With guns point­ing, Cob­ham and his friend ran up the street to­wards the front of the ve­hi­cle. As Cob­ham opened the front pas­sen­ger door of the car, the po­lice­man shot him with his li­censed firearm.

The of­fi­cer al­so shot at the sec­ond man who still had his gun point­ed in his di­rec­tion. The man ran off but lat­er went to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal to seek med­ical at­ten­tion. He is still ward­ed un­der po­lice guard.

The of­fi­cer had gone to the area to vis­it with his rel­a­tives.

Cob­ham’s aunt De­bra Sandy claimed that her nephew and his friend were sit­ting on a cul­vert along New Haven Av­enue when the po­lice­man walked up to them. There was an ex­change of words, she claimed. She al­leged the of­fi­cer then shot Cob­ham in the head and shot his friend. Cob­ham was charged for rob­bing a gas sta­tion at Pointe-a-Pierre last year. He was al­so fined $11,000 last year on a sec­ond drunk dri­ving con­vic­tion. Cob­ham’s fa­ther, Ruthven Sandy, 63, was one of three peo­ple killed in a shoot­ing in­ci­dent at a bar in Mara­bel­la in Oc­to­ber 2017. His aunt said Cob­ham al­ways felt the po­lice want­ed to kill him. The of­fi­cer, who is a pros­e­cu­tor at the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court, was not in work on Mon­day.

Snr Supt Zamsheed Mo­hammed has said that an in­ves­ti­gat­ing is on­go­ing.