A Manenberg man, Rashied Moses, 37, was fatally shot outside a city private school on Tuesday afternoon in full view of pupils and parents.
The drama unfolded outside St George’s Grammar in Mowbray as children walked through the school gates to meet their parents.
Police spokesperson Frederick van Wyk said a 37-year-old man had been arrested at the scene after he had allegedly shot at his ex-wife’s fiancé in an altercation. He will appear in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court on Thursday on a murder charge.
“A shooting incident occurred at about 3.15pm outside a school premises in Mowbray. The school was already out. (Moses) and his fiancée went to the school to fetch her child. (Her) ex-husband also arrived at the school. An altercation ensued between the ex-husband and (Moses) which resulted in the ex-husband (allegedly) pulling out a firearm firing two shots at (Moses),” Van Wyk said.
Moses died on the scene after being shot in the face and neck.
Van Wyk said it was not clear what the fight was about and that it was part of the investigation. They would also probe whether the firearm had been licensed.
St George’s headmaster Julian Cameron said the shooting had taken place about 500 metres from the school.
“The school was out already. There were a small number of learners, staff members and parents who came to fetch their children who witnessed the incident. Fortunately none of them were hurt. We have put in place steps to ensure that the children who witnessed the incident go through trauma counselling,” Cameron said.
Witnesses said a scuffle broke out between two men and a woman which led to the fatal shooting. Some said that a brother and sister, aged 12 and 16, at the school were usually picked up by their parents in separate cars.
The mother fetched the girl while the father collected the boy.
However, on Tuesday the father had taken the girl with him as well, while his son was already waiting in his white Quantum taxi, witnesses said.
The mother had walked over to his vehicle and pulled her daughter from it.
Later, just metres from the school gates, a scuffle had broken out between the father and Moses. It is believed a gunshot went off and Moses, 37, was fatally wounded.
The father was handcuffed and taken into a police van.
Police vehicles lined the road leading to the school gates and police cordoned off the area.
A black Citi Golf was on a corner with Moses’s body in the driver’s seat. His feet were dangling from the vehicle. A large heart-shaped balloon was in the back of the vehicle. The firearm was on the ground near the car until crime scene forensic specialists arrived hours later.
According to friends, the daughter of the suspect was severely traumatised and taken to Vincent Pallotti Hospital.
A cousin of the siblings believed to have been in the vehicle when Moses was shot, was also taken to hospital in a state of shock.
The mother of the children spent hours at the scene, metres from Moses’s body.
Moses’s relatives arrived about an hour after the shooting. His mother, Faeeza Moses, was so traumatised she had to be supported by relatives and friends.
She said her son had lived with her in Manenberg. Earlier on Tuesday, he had showered, dressed and left the house when his fiancée picked him up, she said.
The couple had been dating for some time and had a two-month old daughter, Faeeza Moses said.
Gadija Schroeder, Moses’s best friend, cried as she sat next to his mother. As relatives arrived they burst into tears on seeing the car with Moses’s feet dangling from it.
Schroeder said: “I’ve known him all my life, we grew up together but we became really close in the past five years. He was in jail for some time and I always visited him and motivated him. I knew him as a very soft person and anyone could ask him for anything and he would help them. Why did he have to be killed?”
Schroeder said Moses never went with his fiancée to fetch her other children: “It was just unfortunate that he had to go with her today.”
Education MEC Donald Grant’s spokeswoman, Bronagh Casey, said while they did not have jurisdiction over a private school, they will arrange counselling for the pupil in the car at the time. - Cape Times