Mother of boy, 15, killed in Rotterdam police shooting filing manslaughter charges
The biological mother of the 15-year-old boy shot dead by the police in Capelle aan den IJssel on Sunday is filing manslaughter charges against the police, her lawyer, Gerland Roethof, said on the talk show Pauw & De Wit. “She’s devastated,” the lawyer said, NOS reports.
Her son, Jerryson, was shot dead outside a McDonald’s on Sunday, shortly after he and others allegedly robbed another boy of a fatbike. On Wednesday, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) reported that the boy was in possession of “a functional firearm in the form of a converted gas pistol.” The police reported that they warned the boy several times and shot him when he ignored the warnings and ran away.
“His biological mother really wants to get to the bottom of things. Were the police allowed to shoot in this situation? That’s what matters to her. And her position is: no. Absolutely not,” Roethof said. “She wants to be sure that everything possible is done, that justice is served.”
The McDonald’s restaurant was busy on Sunday afternoon, and many people witnessed the police shooting the boy. His mother asked witnesses to come forward and tell what they saw. She also wants a pathologist of her choosing to examine her son’s body.
The Rijksrecherche, the department that handles internal investigations at the police, is investigating the fatal police shooting. Asked whether Jerryson’s mother questions the independence of that investigation, Roethof said: “A check is not an act of hostility.”
Jerryson’s mother lives in Curacao, the lawyer said. “She moved back because she was homesick, but she wanted to give her eldest children a better future by leaving them in the Netherlands.” It was already known that the boy was in foster care.
