Quancy John, the ex-policeman who is accused of killing Patentia Secondary School student Kelvin Frazer, told investigators that the teen grabbed his weapon and it fired accidently during a scuffle.
This is according to police witness Elson Baird, who investigated the fatal shooting of the 16-year-old. Fraser was allegedly shot and killed by the rank while he was reportedly fleeing police officers who had gone to the school following complaints of young men interfering with girls at the schools.
Testifying yesterday at the trial of John, who is charged with the murder of Fraser, Baird told Justice Franklyn Holder and a 12-member jury that he had visited John at the Wales Police Station and received information that the policeman was under close arrest. He said ranks were only placed under close arrest following an allegation of misconduct and they were confined to the station but not locked up. He said he did not know John was under arrest for a criminal offence.
Baird stated that he approached the detained rank and told him that he was attached to the Police Office of Professional Responsibility and that he was investigating the fatal shooting of Fraser. He said the rank agreed to take him and others to the scene of the shooting.
John, he said, took them to 3rd Street Patentia, West Bank Demerara—some 600 meters from the Patentia Secondary School from where the teen had fled— and showed them the spot where the shooting occurred. Baird said there were signs of bloodstains on the ground near a drain along the street.
He said the accused then demonstrated to him what happened that afternoon. He said John related that he saw a young man running and he told him to freeze and he obeyed. “I told him to come over the drain and he came over. I was holding the gun in my left hand… the nuzzle was pointing upward. I hold him with my right hand and he grabbed the gun and we started to struggle and the gun went off,” Baird quoted John as saying.
Baird said later that day himself along with two other officers went to the Ezekiel Funeral Home to view Frazer’s body.
John, 34, of 325 Kuru Kuru, Linden-Soesdyke Highway was charged with the murder of Fraser after weeks of public outcry and protests by secondary school students in front of the Wales Police Station.
On Wednesday, Inspector Ramesh Singh testified that no order was given to the policemen on patrol to shoot when it responded to the report at the school. Singh, the officer in charge of the patrol, said he gave orders to effect arrests but never an order to fire.
The trial continues today.
