A Dance with Death

The day was Monday, August 10, 2020. The time was sometime after 9am. My partner Sgt. 3506 Nesbitt and I were the last crew on the 8am- 4pm shift to leave Police Headquarters out on mobile patrol. While we were in the patrol car departing Police Headquarters compound, the words spoken over the transmission passed by police control room were reports of a domestic complaint involving a mother and son in the Cascarilla Street, Pinewood Gardens area. Nesbitt said to me, “we might as well take that complaint seeing as no other unit responded”, and I agreed.

With the flip of a switch and a few presses of a button, we now had lights, sirens and foghorns as we proceeded from East Street in the area of police headquarters to Willow Tree Avenue Pinewood Gardens. While in route to the complaint, the thoughts of my original partner and I being split up continued to cross my mind, I then asked Sgt. Nesbitt in an annoyed tone, “why did you split up me and my original partner?” Nesbitt looked at me and replied, “I heard you were a good officer, and I wanted the opportunity to work along with you seeing as how I’m relatively new to this division.” In hearing this, I looked at Nesbitt in a side-eye fashion and said to myself “yeah bro whatever.” I thought to myself “like who the hell this nigga think he is coming round here fuckin up the program?? Who the hell said I ever wanted to ride with you?? I don’t even know you.” I was already turned off by Nesbitt’s assertiveness, nevertheless I tried to remain optimistic and keep an open mind.

It was sometime shortly after 10am as we turned off Willow Tree Avenue now heading west on Cascarilla Street. Initially, it seemed like an ordinary day, however, the following chain of events surely took a turn for the worse. As my partner and I slowly coasted along Cascarilla Street, about midway through in the distance I saw what appeared to be a person standing in the middle of the street and waving at us in attempts to flag down the police cruiser. As we got closer, I noticed a settled lady who upon our arrival began sharing with us the reasons she requested police assistance. In speaking with her, she said to Nesbitt and I that while performing her morning devotions and singing songs, her son with whom she lives became belligerent towards her and threatened to kill her. There was also loud explicit music emanating from the walls of the house, as she continued to express that she was in fear of her son and the possibility that he would harm her. As Nesbitt and I moved toward the house, the front door remained wide open, I then told her to call her son outside so we could speak to them both. When I said this, the lady remained frozen for a few seconds and hesitated before finally calling out to him. I then noticed the look of doubt and uncertainty appear on her face as she hesitated to step foot back inside the house.

Upon seeing the look on her face, Nesbitt and I both looked at each other and instantly realized that this lady feared for her life, at this juncture we decided to go inside the house to loud, ear deafening music. I proceeded inside the house first, I initially looked around and did not see anyone in the front area. As I proceeded into the hallway, I looked back at the front door area where the complainant stood and did not move. As I advanced toward the bedroom where the music grew considerably louder, I suddenly felt a sharp, yet blunt feeling object that was extremely hot strike me in my left eye, instantly knocking out the vision in that eye. It felt like I was just struck with a hot sledgehammer in my left eye, I immediately held my left eye in excruciating pain. Screaming in agony, I shouted “What the hell was that!!??” I was completely baffled as to what caused this sudden pain, that instantly knocked out my hearing and rendered me unable to hear anything and everything around me. Completely unsure as to what was happening around me, I opened my right eye in an attempt to regain my vision. Upon opening my right eye, there was a hideous dark-skinned male standing directly in front of me just a few feet away, with a black firearm pointed directly in my line of sight. I immediately turned around and hightailed it toward the mother who stood in the house just a few feet behind me near the front door. As the son continued to discharge multiple rounds in our direction, I immediately threw my body around the mother acting as a human shield, protecting her from both her son and from the barrage of bullets flying in our direction. As I did this, I was able to simultaneously push her outside of the door to where my partner Nesbitt took her away from the house and over to safety. I fell to the ground and stayed down in an attempt to avoid becoming target practice. As I was down on the ground, the bullets continued to hail as the assailant continued letting off shot after shot after shot.

While on the ground, I had to quickly think on my feet as to what my next move was going to be. In doing so, I realized there was barely enough time to make a split-second decision, knowing in that moment that if I made the wrong decision or even took a bit longer to make my next move, the result would most likely be fatal. Strangely in that moment, I remembered a maneuver from my police training days where we had to crawl on our stomach while on the ground in an effort to get where we wanted to go. I followed suit and crawled on my stomach as swiftly as I could to make it to the front door, the bullets continued to fly. As I crawled to the front door, I immediately felt hands grab me by my blood-soaked shirt and dragging me out of the house, across the dirt, across the hot asphalt and finally behind the patrol car, which was supposed to be used as a shield. I looked up and saw out of one eye, it was my partner Sgt. Nesbitt standing tall and mighty as an oak tree as he had drawn his black Sig Sauer 9mm pistol from its holster and pointing it in the direction of the house. The male suspect came to the front door continuing to discharge his firearm at Nesbitt and I. Sgt. Nesbitt seemingly unphased by the situation, began firing back at the suspect while simultaneously communicating on the radio calling out for assistance, “Officer down! Officer down! Joey Rolle has been shot! Officer down, we’re in need of urgent assistance!” He shouted in urgent haste all while continuing to discharge his pistol in the front doorway of the house in attempts to keep this male suspect from coming outside and continuing to endanger our lives and potentially the lives of persons passing by. I thought briefly to myself “okay it’s obvious Nesbitt has done this before.” The exchange of gunfire between Sgt. Nesbitt and the male suspect was intense and deafening, ear piercing, yet he manages to remain so calm. The sounds of gunfire reverberated not only through the corner but also in the neighboring areas. It was at this point I knew we were in for a fight; the battle had just begun.

In a matter of a few seconds after Nesbitt passed that distress call across the airwaves, I could hear the sirens and foghorns whaling in the distance. As the seconds went by, the sirens and foghorns grew louder and more pronounced, as the seconds went by, I knew help was on its way. However, in the line of fire, it all feels like an eternity. A few short moments later, the first officer arrived on the scene of the ongoing gun battle between Sgt. Nesbitt and the suspect. He immediately came to the aid of Nesbitt and I as he drew his service pistol and proceeded to participate in the exchange of gunfire. Within moments after, a barrage of units arrived on scene, one such officer, Sgt. St.Cyr ran through the exchange of gunfire to retrieve me. St. Cyr threw me across his shoulder and proceeded to take me back to his patrol unit where we left the area with a great deal of haste and urgency in route to Doctors Hospital Shirley Street in an attempt to save my life. While at the hospital, I thought about how I initially did not want to ride with Nesbitt, however it turned out that this would be the man to save my life. It was at this point I realized how valiant Nesbitt, and his efforts were. I also began thinking, if Nesbitt left me and my original partner together, and we responded to that same complaint, would the end result have been the same? Would he have risen to the occasion in the same ways that Nesbitt did? Maybe people would be telling a completely different story today.