Family of teen killed by cops still wants answers

The Ottley Hall teenager shot dead by police earlier this month has been laid to rest, but his family’s questions surrounding his death have not.

Alwyn ‘Bunnie’ Browne, 19 years old, was killed on March 5, during an incident which the Royal St Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force (RSVGPF) addressed in a press release.

The police had said that while executing a search warrant, Browne shot at them. Consequently, they opened fire and injured him. Browne succumbed to his injuries at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital(MCMH), the release stated.

“The police lives were in danger and they have therefore used the necessary force at the time to de-escalate the situation. We express condolences to the family of the deceased,” were their words.

However, Alvin Herbert, the father of the deceased, in a visit to SEARCHLIGHT two days before he buried his son on March 17, was frustrated with the organization.

His son’s body had been released to him after a post mortem, but the condition of the body caused the family to record a video.

In this video, taken at the EverReady Funeral home, the sister of the deceased is shown appearing to point out multiple wounds across her brother’s corpse.

These wounds, which the family is saying are all bullet wounds, are shown as being in the upper body as well as lower body, and they appear to have come from different angles.

At the end of the video, his sister, who is the one showing these wounds, is heard crying in the background.

“X amount ah shot, x amount ah shot… nah no one shot,” the frustrated father exclaimed while speaking at SEARCHLIGHT.

Herbert said since the post mortem, he has not been told anything by the authorities, and that the police have not approached him personally to tell him what happened to his son.

“No police ever come to me. The mother go by the station with she sister, and ask them wey the problem, why the police do she son so, she told me that one ah the police tell she now it dey under investigation,” Herbert recalled.

He believes this to be a cover, and continued that he just wants to know “what going on”, “how they kill him so brutal.”

Additionally, the father also has a problem with the way his son’s death was recorded. The age of the deceased on an official document concerning the young man’s death is 17 years old, but his age was 19, the upset parent claimed.

“How can a police go and say my son 17… right now if you go, I could bring the death certificate everything, it get on 17…we ain have no money, we can’t change nothing, we can’t go to anybody.”

The information which Herbert has been given is that his son was hiding under a bed, and the police raised up the bed to shoot him. He has been told that ‘Bunnie’ did not have a gun.

“The bullet break up cloth all ting pon the bed…The amount ah shot wey this (officer) pelt,” the father claimed.

“I go like to know from them why them kill him, wey the reason why them kill him, if he have a gun where is the gun…, I go like to find out that,” he said.

Further, he says that the policeman involved in the shooting has not been suspended.

The Commissioner of Police (COP) Colin John has ordered a coroner’s inquest into the circumstances surrounding Browne’s death.