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FOUR YEARS LATER

Nightfall in Brooklyn and Lou Jerard, a husky white cop, slung their patrol car across the sidewalk, trying to block the suspect in, but the young man was too fleet of foot for any car to stop him. He jumped on top of the patrol car’s hood, slid his small frame across it, and jumped down running. Lou and Roni, his partner, hopped out running too.

Their suspect, a petty thief who had snatched a young lady’s iPhone, had run into the alley that led into an open field behind a housing project. If he made it to that housing project they knew it was over. He would easily get lost in that crowd, and once there nobody would be willing to help a cop do anything about it. They had to get to him before he got to that open field.

Roni in uniform looked a whole lot different than Roni in street clothes. In uniform, she wore no heels, no jewelry, and her big afro was neatly tucked away inside her officer’s cap. It wasn’t her style by a mile, but it was a necessary step to her goal: Plainclothes Detective. She’d already been notified she’d passed the exam. Again. But would she be passed over again?

She was five years younger than Jerard, about a hundred pounds lighter, and was therefore able to outrun her partner easily. But their suspect was younger than she was and faster on his feet. There was no way, in her estimation, they were going to catch him.

But fate intervened and he stumbled over a brick and fell, causing him to twist his ankle. But it was all she needed to rush up on him and place her knee in his back until her partner could arrive. She frisked him and found the phone, but no weapons.

Jerard, nearly breathless, finally made it up to them. He grabbed up their suspect and slammed his back against the alley wall, which was a boarded-up old pharmacy building. “Making us run like that.” He punched the young man in his stomach, causing the young man to bend. “You think we got time to be running after your thieving ass?” He punched him again.

“Okay,” Roni said, holding her hand between their suspect and her partner. One punch she could see. He deserved it in her view. But they weren’t about to brutalize the kid.

But their suspect was as defiant as ever. “Yeah you better listen to the sister,” he said, taunting Jerard. “We know who wears the pants in that partnership.”

“Why you little punk,” Jerard said and flung Roni’s hand out of the way as he punched their suspect on the chin, causing his knees to buckle.

“J, that’s enough!” Roni yelled out, but Jerard wasn’t finished with the punk. He hit him again, this time in the stomach once more, causing the young man to fall on his knees. Then Jerard kicked him in the chin with his shoe, causing him to fall on his back. But the suspect quickly sat up and spit at Jerard.

Although Roni’s arm caught the brunt of the spit, Jerard’s anger took over and without giving it a moment’s thought, he pulled out his weapon and shot their suspect in the head.

The young man’s eyes stretched at the veteran cop, and then at Roni as if he couldn’t believe she allowed it to happen to him too, and then he slid down to the ground, his eyes wide open.

Roni backed up in pure shock. Did she just see what she just saw? Did her partner of seven years just execute a phone snatcher ? Did that just happen?

Her partner was breathing even heavier than he already was. “That’s what his butt get for coming at me like that,” he said as if he was attempting to justify his actions to himself. Then he pulled out his own phone and made a call.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you think? I’m not going down for this.”

Roni couldn’t believe that was his first thought. She immediately got down on her knees and began to administer CPR although anybody could see the kid was dead.

“It’s Lou Jerard,” he said into the phone. “We got a down.”

Apparently the voice on the other end of his phone asked where, he told him where, and then the call ended. But Roni was still pumping on a chest that felt brick-hard.

“You’re wasting your time, Ross,” Jerard said to her. Then he tried to pull her up. “Just stop it.”

But she jerked away from him and continued pumping. She felt as if she could have done more to protect the kid. Why didn’t she do more? But she didn’t see it coming. She just didn’t see it coming!

She looked up at her partner. He was trying to play it easy, like it was no big deal, but she could see the terror in his eyes.

And he could see the anger in her eyes. “He spit on me,” he said defensively. “That’s an assault!”

“Are you crazy?” Roni yelled at him. “You don’t shoot somebody for spitting on you!”

“He’s a thief! Have you forgotten that?”

“He stole a phone, J. That’s not a death sentence. Have you forgotten that ?”

Roni could see Jerard’s facade breaking down. He knew he had fucked up. It was all over his face. But Roni could also see that his fear wasn’t for the young man he had killed, but for his own skin. He was scared for himself.

“Who did you call?” Roni asked him.

“Who do you think?”

“Who?”

“Mulvaney.”

Roni frowned. “Ah man, why would you do that? He’ll only make it worse.”

“How could he make it worse?” Jerard blared out. “This is my life on the line.”

Before Roni could respond about the young man’s life he just took, an unmarked police car turned into the alley and sped up to where they were standing. Roni stood up as Detective Charlie Mulvaney, the kind of unethical, immoral gangster pretending to be a cop she despised, got out and walked up to them.

“I’m glad you were nearby, bro,” Jerard said to him.

Mulvaney was looking at the suspect. “What happened?”

“I didn’t mean to shoot him,” Jerard said in a whiny voice that Roni hated.

Mulvaney wasn’t crazy about it either. “I didn’t ask you that. What happened?”

Roni spoke up. “He snatched an iPhone out of a lady’s hand and took off running. We saw it and gave chase in the car, then got out and footed it. We all ended up here where . . .” Snitching was not easy for her. She was no snitch.

“Where he spat on me,” Jerard said.

But this was different. A kid was dead. “He spat on my partner after my partner beat the shit out of him,” she said.

Mulvaney was staring at Roni. “Un-hun. Then what happened?”

“After he committed that assault on me,” Jerard said before Roni could say anything, “I shot him. But I didn’t mean to shoot him.”

“Then why did you shoot him?” Roni asked him.

“I was. . . It was . . . It was self-defense,” Jerard stumbled upon saying.

“Damn right it was,” said Mulvaney.

Roni couldn’t believe it. “Self-defense?” Roni looked at the unsavory detective who had a reputation for getting cops out of trouble. “Our suspect has no weapons.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I frisked him myself!”

“Yeah but there are other ways to present a problem for a beat cop.”

“Like what?”

Before Roni knew it, Mulvaney had grabbed her gun, shot their downed suspect three more times, bent down, placed her gun in the suspect’s hand, and fired two shots just past where Roni was standing, causing Roni to slide aside least she got shot herself. It all happened so fast, she was still reeling.

Then Mulvaney stood up and handed her back her gun. “Like that,” he said. Then he looked at her. “It was self-defense,” he said specifically to Roni. “And if it wasn’t,” he added, “what are your bullets doing inside of him too?”

Then Mulvaney’s phone was ringing again. He answered the call, got the location, and then ended the call. “Call it in, Jerard,” he said as he headed back to his car. Then he backed all the way out of that alley, and took off apparently to another “hot spot.”

Roni looked at Jerard. Jerard pressed the radio button on his shoulder. “Shots fired!” he blared into the radio. “Shots fired! Send back up! Shots fired!”

Roni could hardly believe what was happening.

She could not believe it.