One Department

by Thomas A. Young

  They had driven her to jobs via Interstate 5 enough times that she knew the fastest way there by heart, and she made it there without incident. But as she cruised into the northbound lanes, feeling a wave of relief, she thought back over the last few months.

  Canada. It was a place where (a) those fine pieces of human waste living in that house wouldn’t find her; and (b) the authorities wouldn’t ship her to Mexico. Probably anyhow. Who knew, they might even let her find a job. She had known in her heart for a long time that Canada was where she wanted to be.

  And she had told as much to the other girls.

  * * *

  Now she had been driving north for an hour, and she was passing through Everett. There were enough streetlights along the freeway that she could see what the cars behind her looked like, so again she checked her mirrors. And there it was, the yellow Gremlin, cruising up behind her in the passing lane.

  Her throat closed up, her spine felt like she had just been tazed. She didn’t lose her bladder but it was close. That was Armando’s cousin’s car. If they spotted her it was all over. There was an exit coming up, the sign said Highway 2 East. She had to time this carefully to lose them there, without drawing their attention first. Just as the Gremlin was coming up alongside, and just as the exit was passing her by, she swerved onto it. The Gremlin kept on going north without even noticing. It hadn’t been them after all. Oh well, ugly as those cars are, there is more than one of them.

  But if she stayed on a predictable route heading straight north her luck might change. She also had to contend with the fact that she hadn’t slept any more in the last week than any of them had, which left her thought process more than a little unclear and her paranoia levels through the roof. She at least had enough sense to be aware of the problems that could create. So with an eighth of a tank remaining, she decided to stay on the road heading East for now and find another freeway to take her the rest of the way to the border. And then she got lost.

  * * *

  Saturday night at Bourbon Street was typically pretty lively, but this week not so much. Not that it was really slow, it just wasn’t packed.

  Randy and Vincent were good friends most of the time, but at the pool table they played like kittens fighting over the turkey innards at Christmas. Where Vincent had the better luck at the rifle range, Randy was getting the better of this contest. Which was good, because on this night a confidence booster would come in handy.

  While they played, they talked about Randy’s legislative project (not enough support to get a sponsor and too late in the session to get a hearing anyhow), and they talked about women, (specifically the twenty-somethings on the dance floor.) Randy liked to dance, used to be pretty good at it, but he was a little past the age of getting much opportunity for that now.

  Then came last call, which Randy declined. At closing time the cops were typically stalking the place waiting for drunk drivers that they could blame the club for. So he and Vincent headed out the door a little early to beat the rush.

  When they got outside, they heard pounding and yelling, and saw several of the younger men gathered around a little car that sat in the back corner of the parking lot, facing the fence. “What the hell you s’pose is going on over there?” Vincent wondered aloud. Randy shrugged and they walked over to see.

  “What’s going on?” Randy asked them.

  “This chick’s passed out in here, we can’t wake her up,” one of them replied. And indeed, there was a young Hispanic woman slumped over with her head on the passenger seat. Randy took out his keychain flashlight and shined it in. No drugs or alcohol in view, but the pistol was sitting on the center of the dashboard. Obviously put there to warn any trouble away.

  “I might have a slim jim –“ Randy began.

  “We already called for paramedics,” another bystander replied. “We had to tell them about the gun too.”

  No sooner did he blurt that out than they heard tires rolling in. They weren’t paramedic vehicles though, they were city police cars. Five in all. They rolled up, surrounded the scene, put all their spotlights on the car and got out.

  “Everyone back away,” Jack Hayward shouted. Everybody moved back, and since there wasn’t a lot that Randy and Vincent could do at this point they moved back as well. Hayward approached and started pounding on the window, shouting at her to wake up and open the door. He seemed irritated by the fact that his projection of authority at an unconscious person wasn’t having the desired effect. When he decided that wasn’t going to work, he went back to his car and took out his big, heavy flashlight. He handed it to Preston Mintz, who then took a position by the driver’s window, and gripped the flashlight with both hands. Hayward stood next to him as the rest of the cops lined up behind the car and put their hands on their guns.

  Randy had a sudden deep dislike for what he was seeing. It wasn’t just the actions of the cops and the situation they were creating either, there was something more. Something buried in his memory, screaming at him to be heard. Something terrible that had happened years ago, and it gave him déjà vu of a really nasty sort. Oh goddammit, what was her name… it was… oh holy Christ it was Tyisha --

  * * *

  -- Miller was out for an evening with friends in Riverside, California. It was December of 1998, a few days after Christmas. Tyisha was 19-year-old black girl who had grown up in a rough area, and had her moments of trouble, but she was also well known for her selflessness, her many friends, and her infectious laugh.

  After leaving an amusement park, she had dropped off two friends at home and was driving on her way to a party at another friend’s house. She had a 15-year-old girl named Taneisha Holley riding with her. On the way, they had a tire go flat. Tyisha pulled into a 7-11, where a man named Michael Horan helped them change the tire. Unfortunately the spare was also flat, so Horan suggested they drive the car, flat and all, to a nearby Unocal station that had an air hose. But once there, they still couldn’t get the tire to inflate.

  Horan offered to drive the girls home, but Tyisha asked him to take Taneisha to a cousin’s house for help instead. He obliged, but after getting there Taneisha couldn’t wake that cousin. So she called another cousin, 18-year-old Antoinette Joiner, and he agreed to meet them there.

  Michael and Taneisha arrived back at the Unocal station around 1:30 am, and found Tyisha unconscious in the car. The car was running, probably to keep her warm, and the radio was on. She had been drinking some gin as well. Soon after they arrived, Antoinette and a friend of his also arrived. None of them was able to wake her, and her body was shaking. And, there was a Lorcin .380 pistol in her lap.

  If there is such a thing as a gun that should be banned as a junk gun, the Lorcin is probably it, and this particular copy was no exception. Though loaded, it was missing important parts and was incapable of firing, but no one at the scene knew that.

  Antoinette was afraid of what might happen if they woke her up in a fright, so he decided to call 911 for help. While on the phone, he made the mistake of mentioning the pistol. Instead of getting paramedics, two police cars showed up with four officers.

  The cops ordered them all to stand back. Antoinette told them someone was coming with a spare key to the car, but they weren’t interested. Officer Wayne Stewart screamed at Tyisha to move her hands away from the gun and unlock the car, to no avail. So they formulated a plan; they would smash the window and grab the gun. With full precautions in place, of course.

  Office Stewart hit the window with a nightstick, but it didn’t break. So Officer Daniel Hotard took the club and got in position with Stewart standing right next to him, his weapon ready. Hotard wound up and smashed the window. Immediately afterward he reached in to grab the gun and BOOM! A shot went off right close to his head. He fell back, thinking Tyisha had just fired, but it had actually been his partner Stewart who had fired from right next to him. Stewart would claim later he saw Tyisha wake up and grab for the gun, but her family members who witnessed her death would claim she
never even moved. Who was right would be of little importance to Tyisha. All four cops opened up, firing 27 rounds in all, and twelve of them hit her. Four slugs hit her in the head, four in the back, two in the chest, one in the thigh, and one in an arm. She had no opportunity for any last words.

  The cops who had killed her however, told jokes about it at the scene. As her friends and family grieved loudly, a police supervisor remarked, “This is going to ruin their Kwanzaa.”

  The cops would initially claim that Tyisha had grabbed her gun and fired first. That claim would fall apart when no shell casing was found, but a gun missing critical components was found. The police department would also completely dismantle the car she died in, ostensibly for the purpose of finding that shell casing. Her family would contend, not without merit, that they were actually destroying some highly visual evidence of what was done to Tyisha.

  The family eventually won a large settlement, and the impending uprising from the neighborhood was large enough that the four officers plus the supervisor who had made the Kwanzaa remark were fired. As always however, there was no criminal accountability. Those five officers did what fired people of all stripes typically do; they found new jobs. They also filed their own lawsuits and won half their salaries paid tax-free for life. While Tyisha Miller remained dead, life went on for them as if little had happened.

  And as it always happens, Tyisha’s family was made to accept that as justice.

  * * *

  “Ready on three!” Hayward commanded. Preston was ready at the driver’s window with the flashlight, Hayward standing beside him with his gun drawn, and three more cops in a line behind the car. “One…two…”

  “HOLD IT!” Randy broke away from the crowd and ran past the three cops in the rear, and marched up to Hayward.

  “Get back over there Gustin, this is none of your business,” Hayward snapped.

  “You know what’s about to happen. She’s going to wake up in a panic, reach for that gun and then you’re going to kill her.”

  The rest of the crowd began to move closer, clearly sharing Randy’s sentiment. Hayward decided that spelling things out might not be unwise. “I’m going to generously explain this once. We have an obligation to help a person who is clearly in distress. We further have an obligation to insure our own safety.”

  “Bullshit,” Randy shot back. “If you make a choice to break that window, knowing goddamn well how she’ll react, then you have no right to shoot her. Even if that means you take a bullet.”

  Hayward began running out of patience. “You’ve said your piece. Now get back over there or you’ll be arrested.”

  Randy stood his ground. “I’m afraid not. You are setting up to murder an innocent person and it’s not happening.”

  They had been staring each other down for about five seconds when Preston stuck the flashlight out toward Randy. “Are you volunteering?” he asked. Preston had no expectation he might actually be taken up on his offer, but Randy saw his chance and didn’t waste it. He snatched the flashlight away from him.

  “You bet I am,” Randy said.

  “You hand that back!” Hayward screamed.

  “Too late, we have a solution now. All of you, move back please.”

  Hayward started reaching for his cuffs when Vincent stepped in between them. “From one cop to another, this’ll be handled by the civilian sector now,” he said. Other men and women crowded in around the car, cutting the cops off from it. They saw the tide they were up against and began to move back.

  “If you blow this Randy, you could get her killed,” Preston said.

  “The risk is mine. Even if she kills me, you will not shoot her.”

  “You’re not the only one here,” Preston replied. “If she sees what’s happening and still threatens anyone else…”

  Randy glanced around at the others in the crowd. “Then do what you have to. But only then. Now everybody get behind something.”

  Everyone did as he asked, mostly anyhow. The crowd moved to the sides and took cover behind cars. The cops took cover behind their own cars, all except for Hayward. He stood out front, wearing a smile. Maybe he was only hoping for a front row view of Randy getting drilled, or maybe he was waiting for his chance.

  Randy gripped the flashlight and zeroed in on his target. Smash and grab, nothing to it. Except for the annoying little detail that it had failed before. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is, he thought. Then he wound up and swung.

  His intention had been to smash through the glass and dive inside in the same forward motion, but it didn’t work out like that. The glass shattered all right, but it bounced the flashlight back hard enough to kill his forward momentum. Not only that, but fragments flew back and hit him in the face, which slowed his progress even further.

  Inside the car, as expected, Elena snapped awake in a panic, and saw a burly man diving into the smashed window. Screaming, she reached up to the dash and got her hand on the gun just before Randy did. Randy grabbed her right hand with his left, then reached his right arm in and got her by the wrist. He pulled her arm toward him so he could take the gun. He almost had it, then Elena kicked his right hand away. Screaming with panic, she fought to get the gun back and then it went off.

  The blast from the short barrel was deafening, and Randy felt a shooting pain on the left side of his ribcage. He lost his grip on her and fell to the gravel, as Elena sat up and began lining up for another shot. Then Hayward drew his weapon. “You had your chance!” he shouted.

  Randy instantly got to his knees. “No! You back off!” Elena took her first glance behind the car, and saw cops approaching. Randy got up and jumped between her and the cops, who all had their guns out again. “You will not shoot her!” The cops all stopped where they were, but their guns stayed trained on Elena. Randy went back to the window. “I mean you no harm,” he said, but Elena trained the gun on his forehead. Randy got down on his knees and put his hands up. “I’m trying to help, but you need to put that gun down or those cops will kill you.”

  Finally she spoke. “Dejeme sola!”

  Randy shouted back to the bar patrons. “Who knows Spanish?”

  “I do!” Vincent replied, and he jogged over beside Randy. “Hola, soy Vicente,” he began. Randy couldn’t make heads or tails out of what he said after that, but it appeared Vincent started by introducing him. Then he directed her attention to the cops behind her. As his explanation went on, her eyes grew larger and larger.

  Still pointing the gun at Randy, Elena opened the door of the car. She got out, moved toward him, inching closer. Then she reached out, grabbed his hand, lifted it up and put the gun in it. She fell back against the car and curled up while Randy quickly dropped the magazine from the gun and cleared it, locking the slide back. He held it up by the barrel. “I’ve got the weapon, now put those guns away!”

  The cops moved in, shouting at everyone to get back. Randy didn’t interfere. He got what he wanted, now it was best to let them save a little bit of face and not make things worse. Vincent sat him down on the hood of another car and pulled his shirt open. “You fuckin’ crazy bastard, look at you!” Finally the wound was exposed. “Grazed you pretty good. You’re gonna need some stitches.”

  Preston came over, tapped Vincent on the shoulder. “We could use your help for a minute.” He glanced over, and next to the Datsun, Hayward appeared to be ordering Elena to habla Ingles.

  “Be right back Randy, just hang out here,” he said, and walked over to help. Hawyard told him to tell Elena to produce some identification. He and Elena went back and forth in Spanish for a moment, then Vincent said, “She says she hasn’t done anything wrong and doesn’t wish to identify herself.”

  “Bullshit, you told her to say that!” Hayward bellowed. “You tell her that she better show us a drivers license for the vehicle she’s operating or she’s going in.”

  Vincent and Elena conversed a little more. “She says no one saw her doing anything other than sleeping in this c
ar, therefore this is not a traffic stop and she has no obligation to show a license, registration or proof in insurance.”

  Hayward could barely contain his rage, but he cracked a smile anyways as he leaned his face down toward hers. “Gun permit. Now.”

  There was a little more conversation en espanol. “She says the weapon was not concealed so no concealed pistol license is required. She also says it was not used or displayed in any illegal manner, so court precedent clearly shows you have no authority to detain her unlawfully any longer for it. She wants her weapon back and she wants to leave this scene now or she’s getting a lawyer.”

  Hayward turned away and stepped over to the patrol car where Preston was on the radio. “What’s the word?”

  “The car is registered to an Armando Hernandez in Seattle. The tags are expired but there’s no stolen report, on either the car or the gun.”

  “Search the car.” Preston and the other three cops began pawing through the car, shining flashlights into every corner. Elena was clearly getting nervous, knowing what businesses Armando was involved with, and knowing she’d be found to be in possession of anything that was in the car. But fortunately for her Armando had the sense to keep his vehicle clean for moments like this.

  Vincent addressed the officers again. “Thanks for stopping by gentlemen, we’ll be going to the hospital now.”

  Hayward was out of options, at least options he could get away with, so all he could do was get the last authoritative word in. “Get a license to drive, and get a gun carry permit, if you even can,” he said to Elena. “Or the next time we find you in violation, it won’t go nearly this well for you.” He motioned to his officers to go. Preston handed the empty gun back to Elena, then they all got in their cars and pulled out. The crowd of bar patrons cheered as they left.