GRIEVING MOM | Rodaliza Baltazar, mother of Jemboy, weeps during his wake at the family residence in Barangay NBBS Kaunlaran, Navotas City, as her husband Jessie looks on. (File photo by LYN RILLON / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
MANILA, Philippines — Rights groups on Tuesday warned the police against harassing Dr. Raquel Fortun, the forensic pathologist who autopsied the body of Jerhode “Jemboy” Baltazar, a 17-year-old boy shot dead by Navotas lawmen who mistook him for a murder suspect on Aug. 2.
Human Rights Watch, Bayan, and the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) called out the Philippine National Police in separate statements after Fortun said she was visited in her office by police officers who told her they were looking into the boy’s death.
“By the way, the Navotas police visited me for Jemboy’s autopsy, and the Caloocan police for Kian’s [delos Santos] bullet. I know you know where to find me. Just putting this out there for whatever protection this disclosure could offer,” Fortun said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
“Wasn’t it your job to investigate? Why harass me for my findings?” she said in another post. “The requesting party is the family. The report, when ready, goes to them.”
NUPL lawyer Kristina Conti, who serves as legal counsel to several drug war victims, expressed support for Fortun and said that law enforcement “cannot compel what it failed to produce/do.”
“No police should be visiting/pestering Fortun, not especially in UP (University of the Philippines),” she said.
Fortun, who heads UP Manila’s College of Pathology, had conducted the autopsy at the request of Baltazar’s family. Navotas police chief Col. Allan Umipig earlier admitted that his men committed an error when they shot Baltazar, whom they mistook for a murder suspect they were chasing.
It was later reported that none of the body cameras worn by the six police officers involved in the shooting had been turned on at the time of the incident. No shell casing was found at the crime scene.