Warrants coming for cops in school killing

Acting Police Commiss-ioner Trevor Paul said yesterday, that warrants for the arrests of Police Constables Gary Moore and Suad Weekes will soon be issued. The two were ordered to be charged with the unlawful killing of Phillip Seerattan at the International School on November 20, 2002, by Coroner Sherman Mc Nicolls on March 24. The Ag Commissioner said the matter is still being attended to: “When the Coroner issues a judgment on a particular matter, there are some things which still need to be sorted, but the two warrants will soon be issued,” he said.

Seerattan, 17, was fatally shot during an exchange of gunfire with the officers at the Westmoorings school. Seerattan had earlier entered the school’s compound armed with his father’s Smith and Wesson pistol, and had shot a security guard. In his ruling, Mc Nicolls conceded that on the day in question, Seerattan was “a disturbed young man with suicidal tendencies.”

The young man, he said, had shot security guard William Ramnarine with the intention to kill. However, the Coroner said that based on the somewhat conflicting evidence given by the officers and the student who had been “held hostage” in the computer room with Seerattan, he concluded that Seerattan could not have had time to pick up the weapon to shoot at the officers. Since Mc Nicolls did not immediately issue the warrants that day, the two officers were allowed to walk freely out of the St Vincent Street courthouse.