The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

A 14-YEAR-OLD boy was shot multiple times at Englerston Park on Monday after a gunman on a moped allegedly approached him and a female student, asked whether they had marijuana and opened fire when the teenager said no.

Police said the shooting happened shortly after 11am. Officers and Emergency Medical Services personnel found the boy suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.

He was taken to hospital and was last reported to be undergoing surgery.

Preliminary investigations indicate the teenager was at the park with a female student when a man dressed in black and riding a black moped approached them and asked whether they had marijuana. The boy said they did not.

Police said the man then produced a firearm and tried to shoot him, but the weapon malfunctioned twice. The gunman allegedly cleared the firearm before firing several rounds at the teenager as he tried to run away.

The boy was struck multiple times and collapsed. The gunman reportedly fled on the moped.

The female student was not injured.

Videos circulating after the shooting showed people attending to the teenager as he lay motionless on the ground, with blood visible on his white shirt.

A woman who identified the victim as her nephew later shared a poster naming him as Deontae Wright and appealing urgently for blood donations.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology subsequently confirmed that a public school student was involved in the shooting.

“While the incident did not occur on a school campus,” the ministry said, “the Ministry is deeply troubled by violence of any kind, particularly when it affects our nation’s young people.”

The ministry said the safety and well-being of students remained among its highest priorities in schools and in the wider communities where they live.

Englerston MP Glenys Hanna-Martin said the shooting was especially troubling because it happened at a public park used by children.

“I think during the hours it happened children would have been in school,” Mrs Hanna-Martin said. “But the fact that something like that could happen in a location – which is the centerpiece of a community and a place which children gravitate -- such a grave, serious, and horrific incident could happen is just very very beyond disturbing.”