Cop shooting shocks Nunavut

AARON SPITZER

IQALUIT — The community of Cape Dorset was rocked Monday by the shooting death of an RCMP officer there.

Const. Jurgen Seewald, 47, was gunned down in the early morning hours of March 5 after responding to a call about a domestic quarrel in the community.

On Tuesday, police charged Cape Dorset resident Salomonie Jaw, 46, with one count of first-degree murder.

According to RCMP officials, Seewald arrived alone at a residence in the community at around 2 a.m. to investigate a complaint about a dispute.

An altercation with the accused man took place and a single shot was fired, striking Seewald in the body.

The other RCMP officer in Cape Dorset was then called and Seewald was taken to the community nursing station, but he died a short time later.

No one else was injured in the shooting. Police will not reveal other details about the death, including whether Seewald was shot with his own gun.

For 16 hours after the shooting the community was gripped by fear as a man-hunt and stand-off with the suspect ensued.

With the suspect still at large, a 15-person RCMP containment team from Iqaluit flew into the Cape Dorset around 6:30 a.m. The officers soon found the man barricaded alone in his own home.

The team, which included professional Inuktitut-speaking negotiators, tried to communicate with the suspect, but he did not respond. The community radio station also broadcast appeals for the man to give himself up.

Meanwhile, police ordered residents to stay in their homes and not answer their doors. Schools, offices and businesses were shut throughout the day and the streets remained empty.

At around 6:30 p.m., some 16 hours after the shooting, the accused man came out of his house and peacefully gave himself up.

He was arraigned by teleconference from the community Tuesday. As of Nunatsiaq News press deadlines Wednesday he was still being held in Cape Dorset as part of the ongoing police investigation.

On Tuesday, Seewald’s body was flown South for an autopsy to determine the exact cause of his death.

A memorial service for the officer was to be held yesterday in Iqaluit. A funeral for Seewald is expected to take place Saturday near his family’s home in Antigonish, N.S.

A father of two, Seewald was a 26-year-veteran of the RCMP. He began his career in the Northwest Territories before serving the force for more than two decades in Nova Scotia.

For six months in 1993 Seewald was part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia. There, he earned the UN Peacekeeping Medal and the Canadian Peacekeeping Medal.

Last October, Seewald passed up a chance at retiring from the RCMP in order to take a posting in Cape Dorset.

The accused man is the brother of Cape Dorset’s mayor, Mathew Saveakjuk Jaw.

If he is convicted of first-degree murder the 46-year-old accused may never return to Cape Dorset. The minimum sentence for the crime is life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

Police on Tuesday said that though the investigation is ongoing, they do not foresee laying any further charges.

Struggling to cope

A few days after the shooting, life in Cape Dorset was slowly returning to normal.

Counselors and mental-health workers were flown in from Iqaluit to meet with residents and help them grapple with their depression and grief.

At Sam Pudlat elementary school, the school counselor spent much of the week meeting with children in groups and one-on-one. Community elders were also brought into the classrooms to talk to children and help take their minds off the tragedy.

“We know the children can be very emotional and stressed out,” said principal George Combden. “We try to be as sensitive as possible.”

The RCMP’s own force psychologist was also flown north to provide help to officers left distraught by the killing of their colleague.

“To say that it doesn’t get any worse than this would be an understatement,” said Cpl. Parker Kennedy, who coordinates the Member Employee Assistance Program for the Nunavut RCMP.

Four Mounties are normally stationed in the Cape Dorset, but at the time of Monday’s shooting one was on holiday and another was on duty outside of the community.

Seewald’s death was the first of an RCMP officer in the North in 21 years.

Ironically, the last Mounties to die in the Arctic were also stationed in Cape Dorset. In 1979, Const. Gordon Brooks and Special Const. Ningeoseak Etidloi drowned during a walrus hunt outside the community.

The last murder of an RCMP officer in the North was in 1960, when Const. Colin Lelliott was shot and killed near Cambridge Bay.

Since the creation of Nunavut, two other officers have been shot and wounded in the territory, one in Pangnirtung and another in Baker Lake.

Cape Dorset, a hamlet of 1,200 people off Baffin Island’s Foxe Peninsula, is famous for its print-makers and carvers.

But the community has also gained a reputation for booze and violence which Monday’s shooting will do nothing to dispel.

On Monday, flags around Nunavut were lowered to half-mast.