Either way you look at it, Superintendent Newton Amos and businessman Garth Craig share the view that the police killing of 16- year-old Calabar student Jeff Joseph Smellie last month was a mistake. The police information arm, the Constabulary Communication Network, in its release on the incident, said the teenager was killed in a shoot-out between cops and men travelling in a white Toyota Corolla.

Smellie’s relatives have said that the police story is not true and that the schoolboy was shot while he and his uncle were climbing up a ladder in a gully in Waterhouse to get home after taking Smellie’s grandmother to hospital.

This was at about 1:20 am.

Last week, Craig, who runs Boulevard Super Centre where Smellie worked on weekends and full-time in the summer, told the Observer that Superintendent Amos, in a meeting with Smellie’s family and himself (Craig) on the Friday morning of the killing, had suggested that the youngster was killed in error.

“We realised that it was a mistake, so we accompanied the family (to Hunts Bay Police Station) because we were concerned,” said Craig.

“We had a meeting with Superintendent Amos. After hearing from the uncle, Trace, what happened, Superintendent Amos said that the police appeared to have made an error.”

But Amos, contacted for comment Saturday night, said he did not say that in the meeting.

“I said that it would appear from the initial investigation that the man who was killed was not among those shooting at the police,” Amos told the Observer.

Amos said that he had not seen the post-mortem report on Smellie and, therefore, was “not sure whether he died from the bullet or from falling from the ladder”.

Christine Coombs, Smellie’s mother, had told the Observer last week that the post-mortem showed that her son died from a gunshot that entered his right arm and then punctured his lung.

The boy’s uncle, Trace, said that on the night of the killing, he and Smellie had returned to Penwood Road, Waterhouse in a taxi after taking Smellie’s grandmother, Jean Davis, to the Kingston Public Hospital. She had received a second stroke at home.

The taxi driver left Trace and Smellie in Waterhouse near a gully bank that residents from both Waterhouse and Washington Boulevard use to enter and exit both communities. Ladders are on opposite sides of the gully wall.

Trace said that just as he climbed up the ladder on the Washington Boulevard side of the gully and was about to get off, the police fired the first shot.

“I got flat and told Jeff, who was already coming up the ladder, to jump off and get flat,” Trace told the Observer. “The taxi driver and I started shouting that we had just come from the hospital, but the police continued to fire the shots. A shot hit Jeff and he fell off the ladder to the ground.”

Last week, Craig described Smellie as a “very disciplined young man”.

davidsonv@jamaicaobserver.com