By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

Beverly Lee-Rolle is still in shock but happy about the news that two police officers are to face a manslaughter trial for the shooting of her son, Deangelo Evans.

Ms Lee-Rolle said she did not know the officers had returned to court until a relative told her - and she burst into tears when she heard the news. 

On Tuesday, it was reported that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) reveresed an earlier decision not to charge any officer in the 2018 shooting.

Acting Coroner Kara Turnquest issued documents transferring Inspector Akeem Wilson’s case to the Supreme Court, where he will be formally arraigned before Senior Justice Cheryl Grant Thompson on Friday.

Wilson’s co-accused, Detective Corporal 3906 Donald Wright, failed to appear in court and an arrest warrant was issued for him.

Ms Lee-Rolle told The Tribune she was unaware the officers went back to court on Tuesday until a relative informed her.

“When I got the news yesterday evening, I was in shock. I bursted out in tears because I didn’t even know they went back to court. No one did give me a call but I heard yesterday evening through my sister-in-law that had to go to court on Friday,” she said.

“I’m still in shock. I’m happy to wait all of these years.”

It has been a long and difficult battle for the mother. She was visibly incensed outside the Magistrate’s Court back in November after the initial decision that the two officers would not face charges.

Although distraught, she still kept her faith nearly two months later.

She said: “I still was holding on. I go to God on my knees and I ask him to show me the way out. I tell him I ain’t stopping there. I said God you have to step in for me. I ain’t give up and I ain’t giving up until the end because I know that wasn’t the end. That’s why I was on the news making noise but that wasn’t standing with me.”

Her son was killed on May 27, 2018. Officers were responding to an alleged armed robbery. While the officers maintained that Evans was armed, the family and several eyewitnesses said he was not.

Residents who saw the incident claimed police approached Evans, who was standing with another man on Sandy Lane off McCullough Corner, searched both men, and in the course of that search, opened fire.

A Coroner’s Court jury determined in 2023 that Evans’ death was a homicide by manslaughter, one of several such rulings in the last few years that prompted the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to review the file and decide if criminal charges were warranted against officers.

Ms Lee-Rolle admitted the whole ordeal has affected her mentally.

“Since he got killed, I was going through depression. All kind of stuff. All kind of pressure everything came on me after he got killed,” she said.

The news of the two officers facing trial comes at a time when a number of officers are in court for various matters including conspiracy to commit bribery.

She felt this signalled a shift in greater accountability for police officers.

She said: “Me and other rest of the family, we stand together. We had meetings and everything, and we say have to come as one. They’re the law and we shouldn’t be scared of the law, because the law is for everyone, not just for them because they are officer.

“Like I was telling them when we had certain meeting some people is be scared to challenge the police because they’re the law. I always tell them the law for everybody.

“We have to fight until we get justice. Even at the end if we ain’t get what we’re looking for, at least we fight until the end.”