One jury [so to speak] is still out on how Lloyd Allan Albury met a horrifying demise in a horrid place in Her Majesty’s Prison. Another such assembly is out and wondering why the police shot Reno Rolle, a man who allegedly did no wrong when he waited with other patrons of a fast-food joint for a chicken snack.

Like other right-thinking citizens, we want to know what is going to become of these matters.

Lloyd Allan Albury is dead. Reno Rolle was shot by the police.

These two men are joined by an untold cloud of other men who have suffered at the hands of either the police or prison authorities.

First, we would like to know whether Albury’s family was ever told precisely why this man – allegedly a so-called vagrant – was put in the Prison’s Maximum Security wing.

Even now, inquiring minds want to know more about this abomination. This man was [from all accounts] killed by another man who was being held in custody in the maximum security wing of Her Majesty’s Prison, Fox Hill. To date, we do not recall whether any action was done or any inquiry made to find out from the Prison Superintendent why Lloyd Allan Albury was put in Maximum.

Evidently, there is also no doubting the conclusion which teaches and informs that this is a time of testing and trial and that it is also a time of great tribulation.

Indeed, some among us with minds that would venture onto terrain where curiosity drives desire also want to know more concerning the July 5, 2012 Reno Rolle encounter with men [allegedly police] that ended with him nursing serious wounds to his person.

We also hear-say that – as a direct result of a gun-fire blast to the belly, 24 year-old Reno Rolle lost a kidney and had his pancreas seriously wounded.

Reno Rolle is also mentally challenged.

We are also reliably informed that he held his hands high when he was accosted by the police. We are also being informed by neighbours, family and friends that Reno Rolle has the mental capacity of a five-year old.

To date, Citizen Rolle has been charged with no offence. Echo repeats and shouts, “…The event to which we refer took place on Thursday the 5th day of July A.D. 2012, at approximately between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. it took place at the Royal’s Restaurant which is located on the corner of Market Street and Wulff Road in the Island of New Providence.

“At the center of the drama that involved Reno Rolle are two men in plain clothes, whom we have come to understand, were armed police officers…” Interestingly enough; we are told, that one eye witness yet swears that he saw when Rolle was shot patrons at the restaurant said [to the police], “…you shoot that man for nothing…” And now we hear say, the eye-witness to this affair is also fearful; claiming that he fears “the police”.

This is a very serious thing, this citizen is seized of the fear that he too could be similarly hurt and wronged. Herein we find what seems a clear enough contradiction at the heart of what we call policing in today’s Bahamas where – at the one of the spectrum – are those Bahamians, inclusive of some police officers who would fight fire with fire and who would love to have the public believe that when they go to work they are putting their lives on the line.

These types feed off both their fears that those of others just like them. At the other end of that same spectrum are police officers who are ecstatic now that, they have renewed opportunities to walk-about the community and pull off other such forays; with some designed to show that the police can be friends of the so-called people.

By the same token, there is today no doubting the conclusion that some police officers do believe that they are caught up in a war with so-called criminal elements. This explains how it arises that when some of these officers are called to action in so-called ‘hot-crime’ areas, they go armed to the teeth.

And as night follows day, some of these officers come to rue the moment they decided to go in to this or that area because as time and experience routinely attest, they misconstrue situations and of course, they sometimes make dreadful errors. Note well, we are realistic enough to realize and understand, that mistakes can be made by anyone, but we remain adamant when we insist on a much needed morsel of justice for those wronged by this or that state functionary.