Funeral held for RCMP officer shot while on duty

About 600 police officers from across the country came to Nova Scotia Saturday to honour an RCMP constable who was killed on the job.

Jurgen Ziegfried Seewald, 47, was shot Monday after responding to a domestic dispute in the Nunavut community of Cape Dorset.

A full regimental funeral service was held at the St. Francis Xavier University Chapel in Antigonish.

Police officers, including Mounties dressed in red serge, marched through the town before the service began.

Officers lined the paths outside the church as the flag-covered casket was carried in. Many of them had tears rolling down their cheeks.

Inside, Const. Seewald's hat and medals were placed on the coffin for the ceremony. At the end, his wife and his two grown children were presented with those.

A local police choir sang and one officer after another remembered "Ziggy" as he was known as gentle man who always tried to use words rather than force, and who always left others smiling.

Amid the tears, there was also laughter as his brother told stories of childhood run-ins with police.

But Horst Seewald also asked that his brother's death not be in vain, and called on the federal government to deal with long-standing problems of substance abuse and violence in remote, northern regions.

Before being posted to Cape Dorset last fall, Jurgen Seewald spent 22 of his 26 years with the RCMP in Nova Scotia, serving such communities as Bible Hill, Guysborough and Antigonish, where his children grew up.

One officer who knew Seewald Sgt. Ken MacKinnon of the RCMP's drug unit in Cape Breton says domestic disputes are even more dangerous than the drug raids that he's used to because they're so volatile.

MacKinnon says Seewald's death is a chilling reminder of the dangers officers face.

"It's that wake-up call. It's that slap in the face of reality that these things can and do occur," he says

• FROM MARCH 9, 2001: Man accused of killing RCMP officer appears in court

Salomonie Jaw, 46, appeared in court Friday in Iqaluit, charged with first-degree murder in connection with the shooting.

He has not entered a plea or applied for bail. The accused is scheduled to be back before a judge April 3.