WESTERN BUREAU — The Director of Public Prosecutions is yet to rule on whether the policeman accused of the May 2 shooting death of a teenage boy Amanie Wedderburn in Negril should be held criminally responsible.

It has been two months since the case file was submitted to that office, by the Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI), which is handling the investigation into the incident.

“The file is with the DPP. It was sent there about mid-June. So we are just awaiting a ruling,” Superintendent Ezra Stewart, the administrator officer assigned to the BSI, told the Observer this week.

The constable has, in the interim, been taken off front line duty.

At 10:00 pm on May 2, the Negril police were reportedly called to a fracas along the West End main road in the town, involving a fruit vendor and three young men who were allegedly using stones to damage the vendor’s produce. When the police, a male corporal and a female constable, arrived, the three men were nowhere to be seen. But no sooner than they had left, they were called back to the scene following reports that the men had returned.

One of the men was pointed out to the lawmen but when they tried to apprehend him, an unruly mob demanded his release. One member of the mob reportedly tried to wrest the man away from the cops. As a result, a third officer was called to assist his colleagues. Members of the crowd allegedly attempted to relieve the cop of his service revolver.

A struggle ensued and two rounds were discharged from the weapon. One of the rounds hit Amanie, who was in the crowd, in the head. He was later pronounced dead at the Savanna-La-Mar Hospital.

At the time of his death on May 2, Amanie, 14, the younger of his father’s two sons, was a grade eight student of the Green Island High School in Westmoreland.