JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A po­lice con­sta­ble has been charged in con­nec­tion with the shoot­ing death of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer Ja­mal Charles, which oc­curred in a guard booth at the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

Po­lice said PC An­ton Philip was charged with manslaugh­ter and is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Mas­ter of the High Court to­day. His charge came hours be­fore Charles was laid to rest.

Charles was shot dead around 3.25 pm last Thurs­day while on sen­try du­ty. Charles, the fa­ther of a five-year-old girl, was shot in the neck and died at the scene. An au­top­sy con­clud­ed he died from shock and haem­or­rhage con­sis­tent with a gun­shot wound to the head and face.

Yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen was among those who at­tend­ed Charles’s fu­ner­al, which took place at the Nur-E-Is­lam Mosque, El So­cor­ro. It was the same mosque where he mar­ried his wife, Si­mone, 12 years ago.

Be­fore he was laid to rest, he was giv­en a mil­i­tary send-off, com­plete with a pa­rade and salute.

His rel­a­tives, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia, were not hap­py with the manslaugh­ter charge laid against his for­mer col­league. They said it should have been a mur­der charge. De­spite this, Charles was re­mem­bered as a de­vot­ed hus­band, faith­ful po­lice of­fi­cer, and lov­ing fa­ther.

Speak­ing at the packed mosque, Min­is­ter Ameen called on those gath­ered to not on­ly sup­port Charles and his fam­i­ly but al­so cher­ish those close to them.

“I stand with the fam­i­ly to­day in their time of grief. We will con­tin­ue to sup­port you in what­ev­er way we can. This is such a sud­den and un­ex­plain­able loss. In a split sec­ond, a per­son who was so full of life, who was al­ways so friend­ly, in a split sec­ond, is gone. We can com­fort each oth­er to­day and wipe the tears to­day.”

She en­cour­aged the fam­i­ly to stand with each oth­er, es­pe­cial­ly with his wife, Si­mone, and daugh­ter, Blos­som.

ACP Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, head of the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, pre­sent­ed Charles’ fam­i­ly with two pho­tographs of him.

Both mu­nic­i­pal and TTPS po­lice then ush­ered Charles’s body from the mosque to the Mus­lim Pub­lic Ceme­tery in Aranguez with a mi­ni-mil­i­tary send-off.