Months after he was shot and injured following an attack at his home, School of the Nations Director Dr Brian O’Toole is trying to remain hopeful that his attacker will be caught and brought to justice, while fearing that there has been a “cover-up” in the case.
“…I suppose it’s hard to be positive. I am trying to be but it’s difficult. At least show some respect to me. Everybody I talk to they believe that there is a cover-up. They believed that indeed somebody very influential is behind it. They believe that the police can’t be trusted. I haven’t met anybody who challenged me to say, ‘Look, you’re not being fair, give the police one chance.’ Not one person,” O’Toole told Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.O’Toole was shot in an attack at his home on January 27th, hours after he had called a meeting to address threats that had surfaced the day before against the school’s student body. The threats were made via Facebook and police and cybersecurity experts have been trying to locate the individual responsible.
To date, police are yet to apprehend the perpetrator/s of the attack on O’Toole or the person/s who made the threats. Several persons were detained for questioning but were subsequently released.
The school was temporarily closed after parents expressed their fears about security in light of the threats and the subsequent shooting of O’Toole.
Prior to reopening, the school intensified its security and adopted an active shooter response plan.
Dissatisfied with the police investigation thus far, parents had also staged a peaceful protest in front of the Ministry of Public Security’s Brickdam office, where they had announced that they will be offering a $1 million reward for any information that may lead to the arrest of the perpetrator/s.
Information that was circulated suggested that the shooter was identified and apprehended in the United States. It was claimed that the shooter is related to a prominent individual and was flown out of the country after the attack. However, when approached previously on the veracity of the reports, Commissioner of Police Leslie James said he would have to check. The force has not issued an update to the public on the case since then. O’Toole told Sunday Stabroek that it was clear that after the information was circulated, the investigation seemed to have stalled. “The whole thing stops when somebody posted the individual’s name. That’s when the whole thing stopped. Hundreds of people know that… he was the one that posted, ‘Let’s blow up the school, let’s throw chemicals on them.’ Horrible, horrible, posts,” he said. “Then he posted again after I was shot to say, ‘Please give me immunity, I will tell you everything. I just want to be safe,’” he noted. This information, O’Toole said, was also passed on to the police. “The police guy we dealt with said that the FBI will be called in and that’s where it gets very confusing because I cannot believe that the FBI were called in and they didn’t take some kind of action. You can’t make threats like that these days. You can’t say it’s a joke,” O’Toole stated. While noting that he was aware that in the process of an investigation the police are not at liberty to disclose certain information, O’Toole said he believes that there could have at least been a discussion at the public relations level of the Guyana Police Force. “…And even on a public relations level, why don’t they say something? Look phone us up and say, ‘We can’t tell you everything but just to let you know we are working on it,’” he said. “I believe the worst case scenario is that it’s a public relations failure, at the very least. Somebody senior from the police should have come to talk to me at the least. They should have tried to contact me in the [United] States and I said I was willing to go to the embassy, whatever it was, so they know they are talking to me. So at the least that’s the problem. I believe that it’s a strange coincidence when certain people’s names were called then suddenly that was the end of the matter, apparently,” O’Toole explained.
He said there had been no response to his offer. “The arrogance of the police here is extraordinary,” O’Toole added.
Several efforts made by this newspaper to contact the police for an update on the investigation prove futile. However, following a report on O’Toole published in another section of the media, he informed Sunday Stabroek that two senior police officers visited him. The visit, he said, lasted for more than an hour during which a discussion was held on how they would proceed with the matter.
The shooter and Fortnite
Weeks after the shooting, O’Toole had expressed concerns about the influence of video games on youth, while noting that the shooter performed a “bizarre dance” that appeared to be from online game Fortnite.
“When I was shot, the attempted murderer did a bizarre dance. When relating this to some students I am close to they referred me to the dark video game, Fortnite. The dance on that evening looked as if it had been rehearsed from the very same video,” O’Toole had said in a post on the school’s Facebook page.
Fortnite is a video game in which players compete individually or as part of squads of up to four to be the last player standing.
O’Toole said after the incident, students sent him a video from the game and he saw the dance his attacker had done. “And it’s a dance that apparently you are supposed to do when you shoot someone. So I have no doubt in my mind that it’s connected with that game,” he explained. “I think and I might be wrong that it’s connected with Fortnite. My wife met one of the ‘bigshots’ in the police along with a senior person from army cybersecurity and this was maybe within a week. And the cybersecurity guy said, ‘Don’t worry. We have narrowed it down to five kids deep into Fortnite,” he further stated.
O’Toole further related that he believes he recognised his attacker. This, he said, he has related to the police, who informed him that the person he had suspected was out of the country at the time. “…I am a psychologist. I teach the police about eyewitness testimony and I know the problems that there are with eyewitness testimony but the guy was… maybe six feet away, [in] bright light, no mask,” he said.
He also questioned how the police were able to determine that the suspected shooter was not here at the time.
Paralysed
According to O’Toole, injuries he sustained to his hand during the attack has resulted in his left hand being paralysed.
While admitted at a city hospital here, he said doctors attended to him and later informed him that the damage was severe and they could do nothing more. “….The doctor and nurses at Woodlands Hospital offered exemplary treatment in the days immediately following the shooting but advised more specialised treatment would be required overseas for the shattered bone, fractured elbow and severed artery and nerve,” O’Toole said.
As a result, a decision was taken to seek further medical attention in the United States.
“…So after a lot of hassles, we got sorted out in America but one of the major problems is that the hospital in America wanted a police report to say I was not the shooter, I was the person that got shot. My wife went several days to the police asking for a paragraph. They wouldn’t give that. Several days they kept her waiting. It’s disgusting,” O’Toole said.
He will be returning to the US in a few weeks for a fifth operation. O’Toole reflected on the events of the evening prior to when he was shot.
He said he was “unusually” late since he was out for dinner. “So I got home. The whole house was lit up and I saw my wife asleep on the couch downstairs. I could see that from the gate,” he said.
He added that he entered his yard, locked the gate behind him and proceeded to open the door to his house, at which point he was approached by his attacker. “A guy jumped out from behind me. Small, young, skinny, light-skinned. I can see him very clearly….the whole place lit up. No message, nothing. Bang! Bang! Bang! His hand was shaking, thank god, so he was more nervous than I was. One bullet went through the door. One went through this arm and came out and one went through…that’s the one that shattered the bone, the elbow, the artery, the nerve,” O’Toole added.
At first, he said he thought it was just a prank. “When he [the shooter] first appeared, because he looked so young, I thought this is some silly kid, who is here for a prank,” he said. However, that soon changed after the first shot was fired. “…When he fired the second one and I started to see the blood come out, then he did the most bizarre dance and I thought this is kid who is high on drugs and I just thought it was the most bizarre thing for anyone to do,” O’Toole added.
He said he believed that the shooter’s intention was to kill. After the shooting, O’Toole said his wife then screamed and rushed to his assistance and he was rushed to a city hospital.
Major concerns
Meanwhile, O’Toole said his major concerns following the attack include finding ways to prevent recurrences. “…My closest family and friends said don’t go back to Guyana because they say there is no protection, there is no safety and it appears there is limited justice. So why go back?” O’Toole noted.
He, however, said he returned since it’s been his home for 42 years. According to O’Toole, recently he has been trying to move away from just looking for his attacker. “My wife and I spent the last, almost three months now, about eleven weeks, trying to think, ‘Who the heck did this?’ And, thankfully, we can’t come up with the list… We can’t think of one, apart from people who got expelled for drugs and maybe by expelling a certain person for drugs, maybe that messed up the whole supply chain. Because it can’t be someone who got upset because they failed an exam. I mean who does that…? I would love to know. As a psychologist, I would love to know. Why the hell did you do that? And how did you feel the next day?” he explained.
He said they have been trying to move away from spending their hours searching for clues about the shooter. “…Now we have a major programme we are doing for youths, that tries to get to the root of the problem and not spend all the time about trying to find this guy because you find him, it’s like finding ISIS people. You shoot one and then there is another hundred…I believe that we are in danger of losing our youths through the media,” O’Toole noted.
