Rolland Lane, Sr., was the first policeman in the village of Mayfield, NY, working part time as a policeman while working two other jobs. He was later a reserve policeman for the Township of Thornton, IL, from 1947-1953.

The Lane family moved to Miami in 1953 when Rolland was 4. The elder Lane ran a home maintenance and repair contracting operation at 11522 N.W. 57th Ave. from 1961-1978. Alma Lane worked at various department stores in Miami and later in the family business until both she and her husband retired in 1978. The couple came out of retirement in 1979 as both went to work for the Kennelwoth House on Miami Beach. Rolland worked as the maintenance engineer and Alma in housekeeping until their second retirement in 1981.

Rolland, Jr., had a strong religious background. All four members of the Lane family were charter members of the Palm Springs United Methodist Church in Hialeah. Rev. Fred Stinson, who was the minister of the church during Rolland's teen years, would later deliver his eulogy.

Rolland attended Hialeah Elementary, Twin Lakes Elementary, Palm Springs Jr. High School and graduated from Hialeah High School in 1968. During his Sr. year at Hialeah H.S. he worked (under the work study program) in his father's business in the afternoons and full-time during the summer until starting college in the fall of 1968.

Rolland would later become one of nine Dade law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty who attended or graduated from Hialeah H.S. No other Dade H.S. had more than two slain cops as graduates. Also, Rolland's fellow 1968 Hialeah graduate, Manuel Adriano Valle, was later convicted of the murder of Coral Gables Officer Louis Pena in 1978. In 1994 Valle was still on FL's death row for that murder.

Rolland enrolled in Miami-Dade Junior College in 1968. He lacked just ten semester hours for his A.A. degree in police science when he was killed. While at Miami-Dade, Rolland worked part-time in the Cadet Corps of the Miami Police Department in pursuit of his life-long desire to become a police officer like his father. After three months he was promoted to Cadet Commander. Most of his time was spent "doing office chores" in the homicide bureau, the unit which eventually had the task of investigating his death.

Rolland Lane became a member of the Miami Police Dept.'s 70th Recruit Class (pictured on 3rd floor of M.P.D.) when he began training in the Police Academy on Oct. 27, 1969. He graduated on Jan. 23, 1970. His leadership was again recognized in the Academy as he was elected a squad leader. "Officer Lane was one of the so-called 'new breed of police officers,' young, college-educated and full of compassion for his fellow-man."

Rolland Lane was engaged to be married at the time of his death to Nerine Barnes, 17, of Miami Springs. Rolland worked during H.S. at the Greendale Acres Ranch in Miami and met Nerine there in 1964 when she was 11 and he was 15. Both loved horseback riding and eventually began dating. Rolland spent a great deal of time at Nerine's house and was considered by her parents, Frank and Betty Barnes, as "like a son."

Lane died just four hours before he was to be off work for the weekend and 18 hours before he was to take Nerine to her senior prom at Miami Springs H.S. "She had made her evening gown and he had rented a tuxedo."

The night of May 23 was not the first time the rookie policeman had faced a gunman. Two months before he had chased an armed robber into the restroom of a service station. The robber had a shotgun under a raincoat. Lane pulled his revolver and told the bandit to freeze. When the man made a threatening move Lane cocked his pistol and said, "I'll give you one more chance." The robber then surrendered.

Also in March, the slain officer had received a commendation for saving the life of a heart attack victim by administering a chest massage. Additional testimony to the character of Lane came from a citizen who was the victim of a strongarm robbery. The citizen described Lane, who responded to the call concerning his robbery just two hours before the fatal shooting: He was one hell of a nice kid. It was a shock to me to hear that he was killed. That young man was very polite, very businesslike, and to my mind typified what everybody thinks a policeman ought to be. (Miami Herald, 5/24/1970)

At 3:30AM on Saturday, May 23, 1970, Lane and his fellow rookie partner, Miami officer Fred Harris, 23, responded to a radio call about a ringing burglar alarm near the Imperial Hotel at 50 N.W. Eighth St.(In 1995 the Miami Arena was located where the Imperial Hotel once stood.)

Upon arrival at the scene of the ringing alarm the two officers noticed three men in front of the "sleazy" hotel walking in a direction away from the bar. Harris later said the three men appeared to "tense up" and quickened their pace when they spotted the police car. The two officers called the three men over to the car but, at that point, one of the three men "broke and ran into the hotel front entrance." Officer Harris jumped from the car and ran after the "runner," Eddie Taylor.

Officer Lane radioed in that he was "chasing a negro male" and took off after Officer Harris leaving the other two suspects standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. The fleeing Taylor ran up the front stairs, down the second floor hallway to the rear stairway, and then down the stairs to the backyard where he jumped over a fence. Officer Harris tried to scale the fence in pursuit but it collapsed under him. He then yelled to his partner, Lane, who was still on the second floor, to "go back to the car and advise" (i.e., radio in a progress report).

Officer Lane then ran toward the front of the second floor hallway and started to run down the stairs when he was shot from behind by Willie Allen Garrett, 24, a self-proclaimed black militant. Garrett lived in a second floor room at the hotel and was not one of the three men stopped by Officers Lane and Harris outside of the hotel.

Garrett had returned to his room after he and two other men (including Eddie Taylor) had firebombed the Smiley Bar three hours earlier in the evening. The three were angry at being refused service (because they were black) and had purchased gasoline at a nearby gas station, made firebombs in Garrett's room, and thrown them into the bar. Garrett had also fired a revolver three or four times into the entrance of the bar at N.W. 5th St. and Miami Ave.

Garrett fired one shot into the rear left shoulder of Lane but the fatally wounded officer continued down the stairs "holding both hands over his chest." He walked out (the Miami News said as a "walking dead man") the front door of the hotel (with his gun still in its holster) toward the police car. Garrett, pursuing the wounded officer, paused at the front door and fired another shot which hit Lane, causing him to fall down "in the middle of the street on the white line."

Garrett then fired a third shot at Lane from a crouched position just inside the front door of the hotel. He then turned and aimed his gun at the top of the stairway apparently planning to shoot the second officer he believed would come running down the stairs (Garrett later told a friend that the second officer "had gotten away").

Harris was spared because the desk clerk, Barry Wilson, "sprinted upstairs" to warn him. Officer Harris was running toward the front of the hotel in the upstairs hallway when Wilson yelled at him, "don't come down, they are Panthers, and they will kill you." Harris unholstered his gun and ran on by the stairwell to the front of the hotel where he looked out the window down at the street. When Garrett, who was downstairs, heard the officer (above him) run by the stairwell to the front of the second floor, he turned and went out the front door. "As he left the front door he raised his arm with clenched fist in the Black Panther salute to the desk clerk." He then fled the scene.

When Officer Harris saw his partner lying in the street from a window on the second floor, he (disregarding the earlier warning) ran down the front stairway (Garrett was gone by this time) to the police car and radioed for assistance. He then went to the aid of his partner who was still breathing. As soon as another police car arrived, Lane was placed in the cruiser and rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital. He died enroute to the hospital.

The Medical Examiner later found that one bullet (a .38 slug) hit Lane on the rear left shoulder and ripped downward through his heart and lungs. Another shot struck him in the lower right side of his back, and a third hit him in the abdomen. (Miami Herald, 651970)

Garrett, who had been living in a room on the second floor of the Imperial Hotel for a month under the alias Charles Dawson, was quickly identified by witnesses at the scene as the shooter. One person had witnessed the first shot from the upstairs hallway and four others had witnessed the second and third shots fired from the first floor. Police quickly set up 15 roadblocks between NW First and Eleventh Streets between Miami Avenue and NW First Ave. Several K-9 dogs were sent to the hotel area with handlers to "try to pick up the suspect's trail."

Police later determined that Garrett fled to a nearby apartment and asked a friend for a change of clothes. He took a brief nap while awaiting another friend who was making arrangements "to get him out of town." The friend, Al Lewis, arrived, and took Garrett to Miami International Airport, bought a ticket for him, and then drove him directly to the plane "by driving directly under the loading tunnel" (Lewis worked at the airport).

But police quickly learned from "tipsters" that Garrett was on an Eastern Airlines flight to New York through Orlando and made arrangements to have the plane boarded in Orlando. Officers ordered all passengers off the plane (under a ruse of engine trouble) and found Garrett the only passenger left on the plane. Garrett made an attempt to reach for the gun in his waistband (there were no airport searches in 1960) but the officers grabbed him before he could pull the gun (the same gun he had used to kill Officer Lane). He was arrested for first degree murder and sent back to Miami by air the same day (five hours after the murder).

However, on June 9, 1981, Garrett's conviction was overturned by the 3rd District Court of Appeals. The Court cited the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case of Jackson v. Indiana and ruled that Garrett had been held more than the "reasonable period" allowed by the Jackson ruling to determine if he would ever become competent. The Court ruled that Garrett should have been civilly committed or released---the remedy earlier recommended to Judge Morphonios.

Garrett was released on Sept. 16, 1981, after he had served 3 & 1/3 years in prison.

FORGOTTEN HEROES: POLICE OFFICERS KILLED IN DADE COUNTY, FL, 1895-1995

by William Wilbanks

Louisville: Turner Publications

1996