Five minutes almost passed and, sure enough, there were the black and white stripes. A police car pulled into the parking lot. When the officer got out of the car, I was expecting one of those really intimidating officers who wished they were part of the LAPD rather than Santa Cruz. This officer had a calm voice, no intense buzz cut, or square-jaw features; he had glasses, cute dimples…there was this look about him; he reminded me of the type of guy who would do the first reading from the Bible at Catholic mass. Definitely not a cop, but somehow he was.
“Hi, I’m Officer Reyes. I heard something about a shooting.” I laughed inside. A shooting made it sound so much more than what it was but Evan fed off of that. For the rest of the night, Evan used the term "a shooting" to sum up what had happened. After the officer introduced himself, Evan began describing what took place. It was the same information he had said on the phone with 911. Officer Reyes walked with us to the door of the police station and unlocked the building and as we walked in he unlocked a side room. He wanted to take a statement from Evan. We were in an interrogation room! I felt like we were in an episode of Law & Order. There was the bare table and the giant mirror on one side of the room. As the officer asked various questions to Evan, I kept imagining two detectives drinking coffee, judging us behind that mirror. The officer had a digital camera on him and took a picture of the pellet and then placed that into a little plastic bag with the label “Evidence.” This probably fed into Evan’s excitement again, just like “a shooting.” Then the officer took a picture of Evan’s wound and then his face. His questions were the typical type: where were you exactly? How many shots did you hear? Did you see the gun? Did you see who was firing the gun? Was there anybody in the passenger seat? Did you see any one else in the car? What type of car was it? Did you get a look at the driver? Did you see a license plate or anything distinguishable about the car? I realized if this was an exam, both of us had just failed because we could not supply the officer with anything. The only thing we could reply to was car information. The shooter(s) car was a white Mercury minivan that had a bumper that was a bit damaged and it was heading northbound on Walnut Avenue.
Officer Reyes started asking me questions, which were similar to the ones he had asked Evan. He wanted to know how many shots I had heard. I replied that I remembered hearing at least three before I felt one hit me. Then the excitement began.
“Hit you?” the officer asked in curiosity.
“Well, I mean, it hit me but it didn’t. I mean, it hit my wallet,” I replied with a desperate tone in my voice, as if I had just been caught doing something illegal.
“But you were hit. That means you’re part of this case as well,” I noticed the officer pulling out his camera again. Fuck! I wanted this to be over with and now it was becoming bigger.
“So, where were you hit again,” the officer was standing up now. I sat there becoming embarrassed because of the location of my wallet.
“Well, the pellet didn’t actually hit me, it hit my wallet. I wasn’t hurt.”
“Yes, so where was your wallet?”
“In my back pocket.”
“I’m going to need to take a picture of that,” after this was said, I stood up and felt completely weird. I had to bend over and have my butt facing the police officer as he took a picture of the pocket that was on the outside of my right cheek. He then took a picture of my face, like a criminal. I sat back down. The officer had his notepad and was jotting down some more notes after the series of questions he asked and after the very little bit of answers we gave him.
“Okay, well I think I got everything I need at this point. Let me put this out on dispatch,” he pulled his microphone that was on his shoulder and started describing a possible white minivan with a bad bumper that has been shooting people with a pellet gun. Once he had put that statement into the police domain, Evan had this anxious look on his face.
“I’ve gotta ask you… I mean… are you going to catch these guys or what?!” he asked this in pure rage, as if justice needed to be delivered. We had just experienced the next 9/11 in his eyes. I looked at the officer waiting for some release of hysterics and instead the Bible reader had this calm look and answered Evan’s demanding question.
“Well, it’s hard to say. I mean, I didn’t get a lot of information from you. We can’t just go and pull over every white minivan we see. Of course, the bad bumper is definitely a starting point. We’ll do our best; the other officers are now aware of this and we’ll be on the lookout.” The answer was not sufficient for Evan. He sat there wanting more.
I looked at him thinking, “What the hell were you expecting from that question?” He didn’t hear my thoughts. The officer walked us out of the building back to the parking lot. He gave us some words of wisdom as he was getting back in his car. Evan asked him if he thought the gunshot wound was needed of medical attention.
“Well, I’m not certified to give an answer to that. I can call an ambulance if you like.” I was waiting for Evan to jump for joy but no such luck.
“No, that’s alright. I’ll be fine,” that was the golden ticket I was waiting for. He’ll be fine, we can go home. We got back into my car and Evan asked me the question that made me want to really shoot him.
“Do you think you can still take me to the hospital?”
“Are you serious?” the thought that I had earlier about me not being the one injured came again and then I slapped myself. This is ridiculous!
“Yeah, I mean, my arm is still cold and it hasn’t stopped bleeding,” if this was the card game Bullshit I would be able to call out on Evan. His arm did not have any fresh blood coming out; it looked like a damn mosquito bite that was now scabbing up. But the good friend I am, or the sucker I am, I drove him to Dominican Hospital on the other side of town and I waited for my doom.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment