by Dave Eggers
—A cop?
—I have one a few buildings over.
—A cop? Son, don’t do anything to him. Don’t harm that man. How the hell did you get a cop out here?
—He was just guarding some party. He was alone.
—Kid, you need to stop all this now. You will be dead by sunup.
—I don’t think so. I’m fairly sure I’m being shielded by some divine force. Some kind of light is protecting me and allowing me to get through all this. So I think I have some time. I dumped his phone. There’s no chance anyone knows where he is. Where any of us are. And this guy killed my friend.
—Okay. I don’t know if you know this for sure, but I guarantee you harming him will not bring you comfort in any way. It’s comfort you’re after, correct?
—I don’t know.
—Peace of mind?
—Okay. Peace of mind.
—You think harming a police officer will bring you peace of mind? You think you’ll sleep better at night after harming a police officer?
—I don’t know.
—I assure you there’s no chance. You will never sleep again. If you want to talk to him, talk to him. Find out what you want to find out. The truth will bring you some peace. I can just about guarantee it. You say you’re a moral man?
—I am a moral man.
—Then prove it. If this man harmed your friend then ask him about it. Seek your truth. But you have to be better than the violence. Exalt yourself, son.
—Okay.
—And afterward I have an idea how you can end all this without any harm coming to you. I’ve been thinking of a plan for you. You say your mother’s here, right?
—Wait. Not now. I’ll be back.
BUILDING 57
—So you know his name was Don Banh?
—
—What, now you’re not talking?
—I don’t think we should do this.
—This is the worst time to start testing me. They keep saying some sniper will kill me anyway. I might as well take you with me.
—It won’t do any good to rehash this.
—That’s not your decision to make. You’re going to answer my questions like you’ve been doing. So what happened?
—He was armed and I fired at him.
—Were there other officers with you?
—Yes.
—Did they hit him?
—Yes they did.
—Did they kill him?
—Yes they did. Well, he died later at the hospital.
—Why did they shoot him?
—He was armed and was threatening officers.
—What was he armed with?
—A knife.
—Where was he?
—In his backyard, I believe.
—Okay. We’re going to do this in a workmanlike way. You answer every single question I have or else I do something to you. As long as you answer the questions I can hold steady. But if you piss me off I won’t be able to control it. Are you ready?
—Yes.
—So your shift starts at what time?
—Three in the afternoon.
—And it goes until?
—Eleven p.m.
—What happened at the beginning of the shift?
—Most of the night was typical. From three until eight, I was patrolling.
—And what other calls did you respond to?
—I don’t remember all of them, but there were two calls about the same homeless person defecating in the Dollar Tree parking lot.
—And what happened there?
—I spoke to the gentleman, and told him he was not permitted to do that.
—You didn’t arrest him.
—No. He was harmless.
—So you used restraint there.
—I always try to.
—Okay. I want to keep that statement in my back pocket for a little while. This concept of restraint is interesting to me. So what other calls were there that night?
—One or two instances of citizens seeing suspicious characters in their neighborhoods. That kind of thing.
—And what do you do in that situation?
—I drive over, look around, maybe wait with my lights off, see if I see anyone skulking about.
—And did you see anyone skulking about?
—No.
—Anything else?
—That night I believe there was someone bashing mailboxes.
—All right. Then what happens?
—Well, about eight fifteen p.m. we got a call about a man who had been acting erratically at the Denny’s on the highway.
—What exactly did you hear?
—That a man in his early to mid thirties had come into a Denny’s and had taken off his shirt. Then he’d gone into the kitchen and had put on an apron.
—That’s it?
—Then he returned to the dining area and apparently stood on one of the tables. And then he walked from table to table that way. Standing on the tabletops, yelling.
—While wearing the apron.
—Yes.
—And that was the incident at Denny’s? What was he yelling?
—He was yelling loudly about how there was a reckoning coming and how powerful he was. It was apocalyptic. He said he made the world and could end it.
—Okay. And then what?
—I went to the Denny’s to check it out, but he had left. I drove along the highway but didn’t see any sign of him. The patrons were divided about whether or not he arrived by car. None of them had seen him enter or leave in a car, so I had no vehicle or plate to follow. I had the suspicion that he had simply parked far enough away that no one saw him arrive or leave by car.
—So you circled the neighborhood or what?
—I took statements from the staff and patrons, and meanwhile there was an APB out for this young man.
—An all-points bulletin.
—Yes.
—This was big news in Marview.
—It was cause for concern.
—But he hadn’t harmed anyone.
—He had endangered the patrons by jumping from table to table. And he had stolen from the restaurant.
—What did he steal? It was syrup, correct?
—Yes. It was not a high-value item, but it was theft, and it’s our job to look into any theft.
—So what’s next? Was everyone looking for him?
—Yes. The three other squad cars on patrol began looking for him.
—By what, triangulating the neighborhood?
—We were looking within a five-mile radius for any cars driving erratically, any men fitting his description, or for any irregularities in general.
—But this was a Friday night. I expect there would be dozens of young men acting like asses.
—Not exactly like this. When the man is alone, it’s cause for more concern. A bunch of teenagers, or a bunch of guys in general, it’s one thing. But a man alone, without a shirt, jumping around a Denny’s and stealing syrup—it’s cause for special concern.
—So you’re looking for him, too?
—Yes, after I took statements at the restaurant, I began a search.
—Without any identifying characteristics.
—Well, I had a description of the young man. I knew he was Amerasian. And he left wearing an apron.
—You know no one says “Amerasian” anymore.
—Listen. I know these kids. I was in Vietnam for Christ’s sake. We said Amerasian for years. I can’t keep up with terminology.
—So you drive around looking for him.
—Yes.
—For how long?
—Forty-five minutes, an hour.
—Then what?
—Then we received a call from his mother.
—What did she say?
—That he had come home, ranting and raving, and that he’d left with a big knife.
—Did you go to the house?
—I didn’t, but another officer did. He took her statement and shared th
at information with the other officers.
—So now you’re looking for a young man in an apron, no shirt, and carrying a big knife.
—Yes. And he took her car, so now we knew he was driving a blue Honda Accord.
—But you didn’t find it.
—No. Then we got a call from a young woman’s house.
—You remember her name?
—No. It might have been Lily.
—Lily Dubuchet.
—Yes, I believe that was it.
—Who called?
—Her father called because the young man had been there. He’d broken the large window in the house. Apparently he heaved a cinder block through the picture window in the living room. When the family came to the window, he was breaking the windows on their cars.
—With what?
—A brick at first, then large stones he took from the driveway. Some kind of decorative stones that he was throwing through the windows and windshields of their cars.
—So the father called after he’d left?
—No, he was still there when the father called.
—Okay. I didn’t know that part.
—So two squad cars turned around and headed to the house.
—Were you one of those cars?
—I was.
—And when you got there?
—The young man was gone. I stayed to take a statement, and the other officer went in the direction the young man was last seen.
—He was driving his mom’s car.
—Yes. He left and sped down Willow, toward the highway.
—Did he threaten anyone at this young woman’s house?
—I don’t know.
—But you do know.
—You’re asking if he directly threatened anyone?
—Yes.
—He broke a plate-glass window.
—And was anyone harmed?
—Glass splintered throughout the room. Everyone was struck by glass fragments.
—And that’s it?
—As far as I recall.
—What about the knife?
—What about it?
—Did he threaten anyone with the knife at that house?
—Not that I recall.
—So he breaks some windows and then drives off.
—Yes.
—And you go in pursuit.
—Another officer went looking for his car.
—You stayed to get statements.
—I stayed for a few minutes.
—Until?
—Until I got word on the radio that he was back home.
—So he went from Lily’s house back home.
—Yes, apparently.
—So you went there.
—Yes. Three squad cars arrived at about the same time.
—And then what?
—We approached the front door and the mother came out.
—And did what?
—She said that her son had entered the house and had gone into the basement and locked himself inside.
—Okay. So there are how many cops at this point?
—Four.
—Four cops. And there’s one man in the basement.
—Yes.
—At this point are you aware of what size man he is?
—Yes. We knew at that point he was about five seven, 150 pounds.
—Not a large man.
—No.
—So you four officers, you do what?
—Well, first we went inside and knocked on the door to the basement.
—And?
—And he told us to go fuck ourselves.
—Did you try to open the door?
—It was locked and it wasn’t procedure to break it down.
—Why not?
—Well, he was armed, and we didn’t know at that point if he’d further armed himself. His mother said that he had been acting erratically and had pushed her against a wall. So we felt his behavior was unpredictable.
—So you called more cops?
—We called the Monterey Peninsula Regional Special Response Unit, yes.
—This is a SWAT team.
—Yes.
—Tell me about the decision to call them.
—Well, SWAT team officers are trained for hostage situations and—
—Were there hostages in the house?
—We weren’t sure.
—But did you have any evidence to suggest he’d taken a hostage?
—Not hard evidence, no.
—Did you ask the mother if her son had somehow snuck a hostage into the house?
—No, we did not.
—Did she tell you that he might have? Did she see some other person in the house?
—No.
—So I don’t know where you get the idea that he might have had a hostage.
—We have to prepare for any eventuality. I’m not saying that a hostage situation was foremost on our minds. But it was one of the possibilities. Hostages aren’t a prerequisite for the participation of the SWAT team.
—Okay, so at this point, you’re still standing by the basement door or what?
—No. At that point, we removed the mother from the home and fell back to the driveway.
—You fell back? Like this is some great battle. Jesus.
—
—You set up a perimeter or what?
—We did.
—But you’re still thinking that the threat is one man—a small man with a knife, sitting in his basement.
—At that point we didn’t know what he was armed with or what he was capable of. He’d done some very erratic things, including assaulting his mother.
—Was there evidence of an assault on his mother?
—He pushed her against a wall.
—Were there blood, cuts, bruises?
—No.
—So we have a man who pushed his mom against a wall.
—Yes. And he was armed with a knife.
—And did he threaten his mother with that knife?
—I can’t recall. But if he assaults someone, and he’s holding a knife, I have to assume that’s assault with a deadly weapon.
—But he didn’t assault her with the knife.
—He assaulted her and he was holding a knife.
—But did he threaten his mother with a knife?
—I can’t really recall.
—You can’t recall. Listen, you’ve been honest and forthright so far. You should stay that way. I know it’s been a while since I reminded you of this, but you’re chained to a post.
—I don’t think he threatened her, no.
—Thank you. So how long until the SWAT team arrives?
—Twenty, twenty-five minutes.
—How many on the SWAT team?
—Ten.
—All men?
—All men at that point.
—And so they arrive. Then what?
—They spread out throughout the property.
—What, like on the roof, backyard, everything?
—I think there were probably two covering the front door, two on the back porch door, and two on each of the other exits.
—What were the other exits?
—There were two basement windows that could be opened. Two of the men saw him near one of the windows, so we kept them guarded.
—And at that point, did you tell him to come out or what?
—We told him that he needed to come out, hands up, and surrender.
—You’re using a megaphone?
—Yes.
—And did he answer?
—He told us to fuck ourselves.
—That’s it?
—That was it for a while.
—How long did the verbal exchange go on for?
—Forty minutes maybe. He only answered us a few times. We tried to call him, but he was not picking up his cell phone.
—So for forty minutes, you’re talking to him intermittently. Did you have any reason to believe that he was arming himself in any n
ew way?
—How do you mean?
—Did he ever say, “Now I have a grenade,” or anything like that?
—No he did not.
—He didn’t build himself a cannon or nuclear warhead?
—No.
—So you still think he’s a guy with a knife, walking around his basement. And he’s alone.
—Yes. But we don’t know if he’s armed himself further. The mother said that there was the possibility of him hiding a gun down there.
—Had she ever seen a gun on him?
—No.
—Did she have a gun in the house he might be using?
—I don’t believe so.
—So you have no real reason to think he’s acquired a gun somehow.
—No hard evidence, no.
—Then what happens?
—Well, at a certain point, I’d say an hour in, he said he was coming out through the front door.
—Okay.
—And so we sent more of our team to the front door.
—How many men at the front door at that point?
—I would say twelve officers.
—And were you there?
—I was.
—Okay. Eight SWAT team members at the front door, and you and three regular Marview cops?
—Yes.
—All right. And who’s guarding the backyard at that point?
—Two SWAT team members.
—And then what happened?
—We wait at the front door for a few minutes, and we see no sign of him at the front door. Then one of the SWAT guys in the backyard says that he’s just emerged from one of the basement windows.
—So the front-door thing was a ruse.
—That was our understanding.
—So he comes out the back window. And then what? Where was he going?
—He seemed to be trying to escape through the backyard. He was heading for the fence at the back of the yard. We had to assume he was going to hop the fence and make off into the neighbor’s property. So the SWAT team member saw him and told him to halt.
—And did he?
—He did. He stopped, turned, and that’s when the officer saw that he was still carrying the knife.
—The same knife.
—Yes.
—Remind me how big the knife is. What kind was it?
—It was an eight-inch kitchen knife.
—Like the kind you’d use to cut what, a steak?
—Yes, a steak, a turkey.
—Was the blade eight inches, or the whole knife was eight inches?
—I don’t recall.
—Okay, we both know it was a regular steak knife. The kind you get at Outback. A little bigger than a normal one at the dinner table.