Hamilton police say they have asked a neighbouring police service to conduct a criminal investigation into the conduct of paramedics who responded to the fatal shooting of Yosif Al-Hasnawi in Hamilton earlier this month.

Al-Hasnawi, 19, was shot to death Dec. 2 after intervening in a dispute between two young men and an older male who was being accosted, investigators said.

Al-Hasnawi’s father Majed told CTV News Toronto that when paramedics arrived, they left his son bleeding on the street where he was shot.

Police said paramedics took 38 minutes before transporting him to hospital.

Majed and other witnesses said paramedics were laughing at the situation and that one of them told Al-Hasnawi to “stop acting” and that they indicated they thought he was shot with a pellet gun and not a real firearm.

“That's the biggest impact on us, how somebody you rely on to be there in the time of emergency and then neglects his severe case and mistreats him like that,” family friend Firas Alnajim told CTV News Toronto Wednesday.

“Even if somebody was, God forbid acting, your job precisely is to deal with it the way that your professionality is supposed to deal with it. Your job is not to assess if someone is acting or not.”

The teen uttered the words “I cannot breathe” to his father before he was transported to hospital.

Another witness told CTV News Toronto that the paramedics handled Al-Hasnawi roughly, like a “baggage handler at the airport.”

He was pronounced dead in hospital a short time after he was transported.

Two Hamilton men, Dale Burningsky King, 19, and James Anthony Robert Matheson, 20, have been arrested and charged in relation to the fatal shooting.

King faces a charge of second-degree murder while Matheson has been charged with accessory after the fact.

Immediately after the incident, Hamilton Paramedic Services asked the Ontario Ministry of Health to begin an investigation.

On Wednesday, Hamilton police said they asked officers with Niagara Regional Police to “conduct a criminal investigation into the emergency medical care provided on scene to Yosif Al-Hasnawi.”

“Niagara Regional Police Service has agreed to conduct the criminal investigation in order to ensure a fair and impartial investigation is completed,” Hamilton police said Wednesday.