By Latrishka Thomas
Seventeen-year-old Jahhym Azoo was violently beaten into a coma on September 5th 2019, an incident which was initially reported to be a mugging or robbery across several media platforms.
But it appears that the incident was actually an altercation between Azoo and five other boys which escalated out of control.
It was yesterday on OBSERVER AM that Acting Police Commissioner Atlee Rodney sought to clarify what took place in Grays Farm that night.
He said: “There was no incidence of a robbery. There was no incidence of a mugging as reported by most of the media and social media. There was a fight amongst some youngsters and stones were involved in it.”
He then pointed to the fact that the skewed accounts are what led to public outrage and he said he wished the information had been corrected earlier.
“I think we never really returned to correct that misinformation that was there, and probably that’s what fueled some of the comments, and that was not the case. We could have returned to try and correct the misinformation that was there. So that was one of the areas that created the type of uproar that came about,” he said.
However, Rodney shared that it was not until the victim regained consciousness that the investigators were able to learn what took place.
In addition, upon sharing this information with OBSERVER media, the police commissioner disclosed that the young boy had not only come out of the coma, but had also been transferred from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) over the weekend.
“He was eventually discharged from the ICU to a regular ward, and that is where we had the opportunity on Saturday to have a good sit down with him and get a proper statement from him. And we didn’t tell the public all those steps that we would take and probably that’s what created the unnecessary uproar,” Rodney revealed.
On Sunday, it was revealed that two of the five boys who allegedly attacked Azoo were charged with wounding with intent to murder. The boys were set to appear before the Child Justice Board yesterday afternoon.