If Paula Singleton’s family is losing faith in Port Arthur police and the city of Port Arthur, who could blame her? She says she’s afraid of those sworn to protect her and her family.

The Port Arthur woman, mother of Shayne Lyons, lost her son, 35, on Dec. 28 during an officer-involved shooting on our city’s streets. What happened then, what’s happened since has been shrouded in mystery, most of it driven by the authorities. People close to the family suggest the city is not releasing information for fear of a lawsuit. But the city’s refusal to reveal or discuss details of the death appears to invite legal action.

Police and the city have said little about events that led to the confrontation involving Lyons and a lone police officer, which occurred in late afternoon somewhere near the intersection of 16^th Street and West Rev. Raymond Scott Avenue, in a neighborhood of older single-family dwellings.

Police said in an issued statement the dead man was carrying a large weapon and would not obey an officer’s repeated orders to drop it. The family, not police, identified the weapon as a machete, which, by legislative act, is legal to carry in public. The officer fired several times, perhaps seven, perhaps nine. Police won’t say.

Nor will police ID the officer, discuss his training and experience, release a police report, reveal why he tried to stop Lyons or discuss a toxicology report. It’s as if the city is waiting out the family and public, hoping they will go away. That may not happen.

In a news conference days after the shooting, District Attorney Bob Wortham said Lyons was carrying PCP-laced cigarettes, but no one in charge will say if he had PCP in his system. What does the video show? What did witnesses, if any, say?

“My understanding of that, he was not responding to a call,” the Rev. Kalan Gardner Sr. of the NAACP chapter said of the officer. “He was not on his beat. We don’t know how he got on the scene.”

Nor will police say.

A Jefferson County grand jury seemed to clear the officer this week, returning a “no bill” rather than indicting him. Grand jury proceedings are done in secret, so the public knows nothing about how the case was presented or what facts were discussed. Oftentimes, grand juries follow prosecutors’ leads.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the officer was wrong. It nonetheless leaves the family and public in the dark.

Police oftentimes lament lack of cooperation with witnesses at crime scenes. But the police themselves have neither built nor fostered public trust in this case. That’s counterproductive for the department, cruel to the family and fails to serve the public interest. Port Arthur must do better.