Jensen La Vende

Fif­teen-year-old Josi­ah Ram­sa­hai who was killed by po­lice last Fri­day in a re­port­ed shoot-out with po­lice was shot five times with a high-pow­ered ri­fle his au­top­sy re­vealed.

Ac­cord­ing to foren­sic pathol­o­gist, Dr Valery Alexan­drov, the teen was shot once in the leg, twice in the hands and twice in the tor­so.

Of the five shots on­ly one was fa­tal, per­fo­rat­ing his both lungs and heart. Alexan­drov said yes­ter­day that with high-pow­ered ri­fles there was "lead snow" where the bul­lets frag­ments in the body.

He said those frag­ments some­times ex­it­ed the body which caused some to spec­u­late that Ram­sa­hai was shot some 17 times.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, short­ly be­fore noon on No­vem­ber 18, they re­spond­ed to a re­port that a man was seen with a gun in some­one's yard off Main­got Road, Tu­na­puna.

When the of­fi­cers re­spond­ed, po­lice said, there was a shoot-out and the teen was shot. He was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex where he died.

Po­lice said they re­cov­ered a 9mm pis­tol at the scene

Ram­sa­hai, who lived at Dook­ie Trace, Tu­na­puna, was re­leased on bail from the St Michael's Home for Boys less than a month ago for gun re­lat­ed of­fences which his rel­a­tives swore were "frame cas­es". Po­lice said Ram­sa­hai was on 13 charges, in­clud­ing pos­ses­sion of a gun, pos­ses­sion of nar­cotics, rape and lar­ce­ny. Those of­fences were al­leged­ly com­mit­ted this year and last year.

Po­lice of­fi­cers at­tached to the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion said fol­low­ing the shoot­ing a po­lice is­sued 9mm Sig Sauer gun fell from an of­fi­cer and could not be found.

Sources said since then po­lice have been search­ing for the gun and have urged youths in the area to re­turn the gun. Po­lice al­so mowed grass in a bushy area last week where Ram­sa­hai was shot in an at­tempt to find the gun.

Ram­sa­hai's rel­a­tives are ex­pect­ed to vis­it the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty to­day as the PCA be­gins its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the shoot­ing. Rel­a­tives said the teen death came af­ter a cul­mi­na­tion of death threats made against him by a po­lice of­fi­cer.