Mai'khi C'Nia, Contributor

Now in the Friendly City that became a raging kill-zone, there was an uprising in an inner-city community and the lawmen were caught in the midst of the protestation for some of the citizens were accusing them of executing heinous folly upon the people and being cause of the increasing criminal rampage in the conurbation for they were but a corrupt bunch.

On that day, a woman who resided in the area left work in the mid-afternoon and picked up her offspring from their preparatory place of learning. After meandering and detouring through unfamiliar and frightening backstreets to get home, she became concerned about her spouse who would most likely have to do likewise much later in the eve when darkness hath descended.

Troubled by it all, she called the constabulary station located at the entrance to the great health institution on the Mount of Salem (the same place where a constabulary corporal met his end at the hands of one of his own colleagues); there the phone was answered by an extremely gruff and abrupt female copper.

Heartened that woman to woman she would receive a measure of empathy she proceeded to explain her anxiety to the impatient sounding copper on the line. Dearly beloved, to her jaw-dropping dismay the officer sayeth onto her: "Sister! Knowest ye not us Peace Officers cannot man the streets twenty-four sevens? We guarantee not thy hubby's safety thus link him on the cellie and exhort him to locate safe haven elsewhere for the night then trod on home in the morrow." Verily I say to ye, at no time was the woman given e'en an insincere assurance that the constabulary would be patrolling those streets so that regular travellers can traverse them in relative safety, while the disturbance was on.

Marked for death

Now in the same Second City, another woman received word that she was marked for death for she was considered by the underworld to be an 'informer' - this after armed invaders kicked in the door to the dwelling next to hers and executed four of her neighbours.

Fearing for her life, the woman gathered her toddler and fled into the night to the police station on the Freeport which is also a divisional headquarters. There, she outlined her story to the coppers and refused to leave the station; thus she and her offspring spent the night on a bench in the reception area of the police station.

The next morn, a relative of the woman received a call from the police station to come and pick up her kin at the station for someone was trying to eliminate her and besides she is off her rockers; but the relative was afraid to show her face at the police station for she trusted the coppers not.

Behold, the peace officers at the guard room were apparently qualified to make such psycho-evaluations and arrive at conclusions accordingly, but were absolutely incapable of deciphering what the woman was communicating to them in her panic-induced incoherence.

Eventually the woman without assistance from the coppers found her way to the home of another kin who resided a stone's throw away from the police station. Upon hearing her story the kin called the relative and confirmed that the woman was by no means unstable, but was genuinely in distress and required to be whisked away into hiding.

Verily I say to ye, these art but samples of such episodes that play out when the desperate call upon the constabulary for the service, protection, or reassurance which they boast to be their motto. Selah.