WESTERN BUREAU – The Westmoreland Coroner’s Court on Thursday ruled that Constable Vernon Ellis should be held criminally responsible for last year’s fatal shooting of a teenage boy in Negril.

An eight-member jury made the decision two weeks after the inquest into the matter began. Presiding Resident Magistrate Evon Brown later ordered that the cop should be formally charged in connection with the incident, according to an Observer source.

Ellis is to appear before the Circuit Court at its next sitting in October to answer the criminal charge.

Amanie Wedderburn was shot in the head shortly after 10:00 pm on May 2, 2003.

He was 14 years old and an eighth-grade student of the Green Island High School in Westmoreland.

The police had been called to a fracas involving a fruit vendor and three men along the West End main road in the resort town. The men were reportedly using stones to destroy the vendor’s produce.

But when a male corporal and a female constable turned up, the three alleged culprits were nowhere in sight and the cops left.

Shortly after, the lawmen were called again, with reports that the men had returned.

One of the three was pointed out to the cops but when they apprehended him, an unruly mob descended, demanding that he be released. One member of the crowd tried to pull the man from the lawmen and Ellis was called in to help.

The crowd, the police said, tried to take Ellis’ service revolver, there was a struggle and two rounds were discharged from his gun.

Young Wedderburn was in the crowd. One of the rounds hit him in the head and he later died at the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital.