A 12-year-old boy was reportedly shot dead by a police officer at a carnival in the Dominican Republic on Sunday.
Donaly Martínez was killed after sergeant Alejandro Castro, 30, fired a shot during a fight with the child’s father, Anthony Martínez, per DailyMail.
Anthony and his friends were drinking in front of his barbershop when police officers approached them and told them that they could listen to loud music from the the speaker connected to their car but was told to shut it down upon the arrival of the carnival singers and dancers.
He said tensions flared when the cops returned about 20 minutes later and tried to confiscate the speaker by force.
Anthony Martínez said the cops opened the vehicle’s passenger door to remove the speaker, which had been turned off because they were planning on replacing it with another.
A video showed Castro charging at the group and drawing his service weapon.
Moments later, a surveillance camera captured Anthony Martinez lunging at Castro before they both fell to the ground.
‘When I tell him just wait, let’s talk, he pepper sprayed me,’ he said.
‘Then I get next to him and he pushes me and I threw a punch. There he takes out the gun that he had in the hand.’
He denied social media reports that indicate he was in possession of the firearm that killed his son.
‘When he pulls out on me that is where I grab his arm and I hug him and we fall to the ground,’ he explained. ‘That’s when I heard the gun discharge.’
Bystanders recorded Castro and another cop removing Anthony Martínez from the shooting scene while Donaly Martínez remained sitting on a beach chair where he was playing with a cellphone.
Friends and family gathered to pay their respects at the home of Donaly Martínez’s parents on Monday. The boy’s body was placed in a white coffin before a burial service later in the day, DailyMail reports.
‘Eleven years by my side for the police to kill him in the street, 11 years by my side,’ Anthony Martínez wailed in between tears.
The local prosecutor’s office announced Monday it is seeking to have Castro held in pre-trial detention for one year as part of the in investigation.
