Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the fa­tal shoot­ing of a Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) of­fi­cer while he was on du­ty at the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment at Kent House in Mar­aval yes­ter­day.

Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen was not at the of­fice at the time, and po­lice said the in­ci­dent did not pose any dan­ger to of­fi­cials and mem­bers of staff at the min­istry.

Po­lice re­port­ed that short­ly af­ter 3 pm, of­fi­cer Ja­mal Charles was on sen­try du­ty with two oth­er of­fi­cers in a booth just out­side the min­istry’s head of­fice, when he was shot in the neck with a col­league’s gun.

One of the two of­fi­cers, who was in the room with Charles at the time, claimed he was not fac­ing Charles and the oth­er of­fi­cer when he heard a gun­shot. He said he turned around to see Charles bleed­ing and on the floor with a wound to the neck.

Min­is­ter Ameen was briefed on the in­ci­dent. She told the me­dia she was at­tend­ing a Cab­i­net meet­ing at the time and im­me­di­ate­ly of­fered con­do­lences to Charles’ rel­a­tives and col­leagues.

She said he joined the po­lice ser­vice in March and was nor­mal­ly sta­tioned out­side her of­fice.

“I have spo­ken to the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, my col­league Roger Alexan­der, who in­di­cat­ed that a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be done. And while I am ex­tend­ing my con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly mem­bers, as well as his col­leagues and friends, I want to urge mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­spect the pri­va­cy of his griev­ing fam­i­ly dur­ing this painful time.”

The min­is­ter added, “I al­so want them to re­frain from spec­u­la­tion un­til the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. We don’t know ex­act­ly what tran­spired, but I have con­fi­dence that at the end of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, we will have some more de­tails.”

—Jensen La Vende