They followed his car for ten minutes and cursing their department for not sending backup yet, they stopped Martin’s car when he was making a right turn at Maryland Avenue, worried that they may lose him.
Since it was the month of November, it would get dark as early as four in the evening. Martin’s face was not clearly visible. Mendez went to the car’s window, ‘License and registration please?’ Martin was well prepared to handle circumstances like this. He was, after all, the trainer at Black Lives Matter to young black kids on how to face such situations—‘Always keep your hands visible while raising them up in the air. Keep your hands empty. Do not hold even your wallet. Don’t get off the car unless they ask you to. Whatever they might be asking you, always keep your hands raised and empty such that they are visible to them.’ And so on…
How can he forget the very lessons he taught others?
He addressed Mendez keeping his hands raised, ‘Officer, my wallet is in my back pocket and my license is in it. Would you like to take it out yourself or shall I do it?’
Mendez glanced at Shaniqua and the baby sitting in the back. Whitaker was standing ready behind Mendez with his hand resting on his holster.
Martin’s face was clearly visible now. Mendez had no idea what the Black Eagle looked like and to what extent does he resemble this Martin Luther King in the car. He browsed the FBI website on his mobile and looked at Igal’s picture there. Frankly speaking neither Mendez nor Whitaker had any previous experience of dealing with these kinds of situations. They spent their time writing speeding tickets or taking drunks on the streets to the hospital, or at the most keeping high school kids under control during rowdy football games. As police officers in a very safe area like Minnetonka, they had never, even in their wildest dreams, expected to have to stop a terrorist’s car. This made both of them very nervous.
Mendez said, ‘Could you please take off your cap?’
Martin complied without uttering a single word.
‘What is your name?’
‘Martin Luther King.’
‘Junior?’
‘No. Just King.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean why? How can I explain my name! You should ask my father, officer.’ Even in that situation, Mendez tried to act cool.
Looking at Shaniqua he asked, ‘What is your name, baby?’
‘My name is Shaniqua.’
Martin thought that the situation was getting back to normal though he didn’t quite like Mendez addressing Shaniqua as baby.
Truth be told, Mendez was more than a little nervous. He did not know if Martin bore any resemblance to Igal. He says his name is Martin Luther King as if it is a commonly christened name. Who names their child Martin Luther King? Mendez had never so far come across anyone with that name. He suspected that this guy is pulling a smart one on him.
‘Do you need to see my license?’ Martin tried to pull his wallet from his back pocket.
‘Did you not understand what I said earlier? Keep your hands where I can see them.’ He shouted at him and held his gun to Martin’s head.
‘Easy, officer. I know what my rights are. I had asked you earlier, but you did not respond. You can take my license yourself,’ and raised both his hands. Mendez bent down, thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He checked his license. It did show his name as Martin Luther King. He handed the license to Whitaker who was standing behind him and asked him to check its validity from the Motor Vehicles Records on the computer in the car.
Five minutes passed, and Whitaker was still in the car. Mendez asked Whitaker on the walkie-talkie, ‘Is there a problem?’
‘Yes, I’ve got nothing on him yet. Nothing is working. I have a blank screen.’
‘Send it to the backup crew. Let them look him up on their computers. Where the fuck are they? The Bureau guy even said that he will fly down here in a chopper.’
Whitaker continued stubbornly, ‘It’s not working. No line is working’
‘If it is not working, come over here. Take a picture of this Martin Luther King and message it to them.’
Whitaker said, ‘That’s not our protocol.’
‘Fuck your protocol. Let’s finish the job fast.’ He was tired of holding the gun to Martin. Whitaker sat in his car watching the upload of Martin Luther King’s data in progress. While he was doing so, his gaze fell on Martin’s ‘Black Lives Matter’ bumper sticker. He thought the more they held this fellow the more trouble they would be in. It was in their interest to get him out of there somehow. When the public image of the police force was already at an all-time low after shootings in different parts of the country, they did not want to apprehend this fellow who appeared like an organizer of some sort for this Black Lives Matter group. If something goes wrong here, the blame will fall squarely on them.
Five more minutes passed by. Nothing was showing up on the computer screen. Whitaker was also losing his patience. Forget about a chopper, other than them there was not even another police car in sight.
‘Get his car’s registration. It is still 4 pm and the Motor Vehicle Department will be open. If he has a valid registration, we can let him go. I don’t think he is our man.’
Mendez was stubborn. ‘Negative. I won’t let him go without double-checking his ID. Let’s release the girl and the baby. Let’s take him to the station.’
Martin was holding his hands up for nearly fifteen minutes, by now. His hands were tired. He was angry when he heard what Mendez said to Whitaker on the radio.
‘Officer, what is my crime that I need to come to the police station? I’m not coming anywhere.’
‘Shut up. Listen, I’m not taking you anywhere now. Keep your mouth zipped and don’t you dare talk so much!’ Mendez had completely lost his patience. His situation was such: here he was, in the middle of the road, pointing a gun at a black man. What if somebody sees this? Everyone these days moves around with a camera. What if someone takes a picture?
Shaniqua who was quiet till then spoke up, ‘Ok, officer, he is only trying to tell you that what you are doing is wrong. Why are you scaring him?’
‘Shut up now. Ok. Please cooperate. Mr Martin Luther King, please show your car’s registration.’
‘A copy of the car’s registration is in the glove box. Would you like to take it out from there yourself or do you want me to?’
‘You take it out. At no moment, should your hands go out of my sight.’
Martin was not certain if he should open the glove box or not. What if the officer sees his gun? He is only asking for the registration. He knows exactly where it is in the glove box. He will be fine if the officer does not see the gun. Or should he tell the officer that he has a gun in his glove box? After all he has the license to carry the gun. He hasn’t broken any law. So he decided to tell him.
‘What are you doing? Even if I had asked the real King for the registration, I would’ve had it by now.’
Martin looked at Shaniqua. She seemed to have read his mind and shook her head suggesting not to.
It was not clear if she indicated ‘no’ to opening the glove box or to telling Mendez about his possession of the gun.
He decided to go ahead and open the glove box. This was a fatal mistake. The Smith & Wesson revolver popped out of the glove box as soon as he opened it. Mendez had not expected this. Martin froze with fear. He tried one last time to prevent the tragedy waiting to happen.
‘Officer, I’ve the permit to keep this gun. The permit is also here,’ he turned around to fetch it.
Bang…bang…bang, Mendez fired in succession. The first bullet got his right arm, the second went to his chest and the third one got his tummy. Martin collapsed right there.
Shaniqua was in shock. The irony of it all hit her like lightning. Both of them had protested police atrocities at St Louis, Miami and Florida in the incidents of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin. Now the same tragedy has come calling into their own life, inside their own car! Is this an
atrocity or should Martin have told the cop about the gun in his glove box? Do all shootings occur as a result of such confusion and misunderstanding?
The baby had woken up due to the sound of the gun shots. He started crying loudly.
She did not have much time to think and react. She heard Mendez say ‘Shit,’ and call out on his radio, ‘Shots fired on Maryland Avenue. Suspect down. Send medics.’
It was not clear what was on Shaniqua’s mind. She paused for a minute and started recording on her phone. Her courage was astonishing. It was possibly because she did not see the likelihood of two blacks being shot by the same cop at the same spot.
Then the whole world got to see what transpired next. Shaniqua started streaming this video live on Facebook.
‘Officer, he was about to tell you that he had a gun with him. You asked him to get his registration from the glove box. He has the permit to keep the gun with him.’
‘Shut up ma’am. Whitaker, is he still alive? Check his pulse once.’
Whitaker came running. ‘What happened Mendez? You fucking shot him? You are always in a hurry.’
‘Whitaker, shut up. She is fucking recording us. Ma’am, please stop recording.’
‘I’ll stop recording. Martin is not breathing. Start doing a CPR on him.’
Mendez told Whitaker, ‘Start the CPR.’
‘You fucking do it.’
‘Whitaker. I’m your senior officer. This is an order. Do the CPR. I’ve called the paramedics. Till they get here, I’ve to secure this place.’
‘Securing? Only the girl and the baby are here.’
‘And the gun there?’
Whitaker saw Martin Luther King’s gun near Shaniqua’s leg. ‘Ma’am, please stay calm. Do not move. I’m bending now to pick up your gun.’
Shaniqua did not speak. She was streaming everything on Facebook. In about three minutes there were a monstrous number of likes for her post. This video was visible only to her friends and those who followed her. By then someone had commented: ‘Make this Public.’
Shaniqua felt that Martin’s breathing which was already feeble had almost stopped. She turned the camera towards her and said on the camera, ‘Someone please help him.’ She placed the camera such that Martin Luther King’s face was fully visible and started doing the CPR herself.
‘Ma’am please sit down. Do not move.’
She sat down quietly. Everything felt surreal. She was not sure if these events were real or if this was a nightmare. The fact that she was still recording was a reality check for her. Meanwhile the tsunami of likes and comments that her video was garnering made it difficult for her to keep the phone aside.
By then, she had recorded for about seven minutes. The medics who came in the ambulance started the CPR right away.
‘Ma’am, please switch your phone off. Is he your friend or your husband?’
‘Friend.’
‘Ma’am, are you aware that it is inappropriate to stream graphic images on internet? Please switch your camera off.’ He grumbled, ‘Ever since these phones started having cameras in them, things have become messy.’
Mendez asked, ‘Is he still alive?’
‘Please officer, let us do our job. Ma’am, if you don’t switch your camera off, we must stop our work. Officer, how did you let her record?’
Mendez said, ‘Can you just do your job? We will get her phone. He had a gun with him and so it was tough for us to manage both. My partner was trying to get the gun. I was keeping an eye on the road. And there was the baby in the rear seat crying loudly.’
He only knew that the camera was recording the events going on. He was not aware that the video was being streamed live.
A few more police cars arrived on the scene then, and all the police officers circled around Martin Luther King. Mendez was trying to explain the turn of events to everyone.
The bureau chief came next, apologizing for his delay. Apparently, his chopper landed in the football field of a school nearby and from there he had to summon a police car to drive down to Larpenter Avenue. He said that he had heard everything on his radio and had a hard time calling from the chopper.
Shaniqua’s friend’s friend is a reporter at a news channel in Minneapolis. She was logged on to Facebook when her phone pinged ‘Shaniqua Reynolds is now live.’
Barely seven minutes after Martin Luther King was shot, Shaniqua’s video had been broadcast on a local TV channel. In fact, she was made aware of this broadcast only through a comment on her post. She switched her phone’s camera off as if her job was done.
Mendez demanded, ‘Give me the phone.’
She gave it with no protest whatsoever. Within thirty minutes after being shot, Martin was brought to the Hennepin County Hospital in Minneapolis. His chest was filled with blood and his pulse was very weak. He was barely breathing.
Fifteen minutes later, Martin Luther King was dead.
By the time he was taken to the hospital, many media vehicles were already parked outside jostling for space in the parking lot. Shaniqua had already given the world images that their cameras could never capture. In just about thirty minutes the video that Shaniqua had streamed on Facebook had gone viral. Many had shared this video on their Facebook pages. CNN did a primetime story on the incident. Wolf Blitzer gave his commentary: ‘This is a new twist to the ongoing tension between the police and the African Americans. Till now, all these reported atrocities did not have a clear eye witness and most of the stories were based on “he said, she said” anecdotal reports. There was no clear evidence. This girl Shaniqua, has now captured on video, the footage of what happened after the shooting. There is no doubt that the video will throw more light on this issue.’
‘This video was taken after Martin was shot. Who knows what led up to that shooting. According to Officer Mendez, Martin Luther King was trying to pull his gun out.’
‘All police shootings have these accusations and conflicting opinions. It is rumoured that they are going to hand this case to the grand jury. Let us wait and see.’
‘So far in the last couple of years there have been cases of police shooting on fourteen young men of colour. Many such cases have also gone to grand juries. How many of them have delivered justice to African Americans?’
‘Zero.’
‘Does this directly point to a defect in our system? We are only a news agency. Let us wait and watch what happens next. The victim’s name is said to be Martin Luther King. Is this true?’
‘Don’t know. He is thirty-four years old. He was born many years after Rev. King died. All of this is pure coincidence.’
‘Granting that someone can choose a name like this, how does such a name even occur to anyone?’
‘Anything is possible in this world. Let’s go to the next show.’ A commercial break came up.
The tabloids and the yellow press feasted on this news. One tabloid published an article under the headline, ‘Shaniqua’s pleas go in vain as St Paul’s police officers refuse to do the CPR.’ Another tabloid criticized Shaniqua for choosing to take the video rather than doing a CPR, and published their critique under a big headline, ‘Shaniqua, the girl who took the video of her boyfriend dying.’
Four days after Martin Luther King’s death, a GoFundMe account in Facebook was set up in the names of the Pastor of Martin’s Church and Shaniqua. Three hundred thousand dollars were collected in just four days!
The same tabloid published another article under the headline, ‘Shaniqua makes a killing out of a killing.’
On the seventh day, Facebook deleted the video from Shaniqua’s account citing graphic content. Mendez and Whitaker are both at home now on administrative leave. Mendez gave a statement which read: ‘I got a message from dispatch that a man resembling the terrorist Mohammad Igal is in the car. I stopped his car and checked his driver’s license. It had his name as Martin Luther King. If someone has a name like this, how can we leave him without checking carefully? Unfortunately, we could not cross-check his name on our
computer system. Meanwhile he opened his glove-box and tried to grab his gun from there.’
Four days later, in the march organized by Black Lives Matter in Minneapolis downtown protesting the killing of Martin Luther King, a sniper shot and killed three white police officers from the top of the Renaissance Tower. Black Lives Matter immediately clarified that they had nothing to do with this shooting.
There was no news about the whereabouts of Mohammad Igal. No activities of his could be tracked on FBI circles either. FBI released a press statement that he has gone underground.
26. Where the River Joins the Sea
A month after Martin Luther King’s death, Nusrat’s restaurant was vandalized. All the window glasses, tables and chairs were smashed and destroyed. There was graffiti on her restaurant’s walls: ‘Where have you come from?’, ‘Go back to Sanghaala’, ‘There’s no place for terrorists in Amoka’.
Days after the FBI added Mohammad Igal to its ‘Most Wanted’ list following his joining the Islamic State and the official confirmation of his involvement in several attacks and explosions, Nusrat established ‘Moms against Terror Recruitment’—a voluntary organization of the Sanghaali mothers. Every time the news that a Sanghaali young man had joined an organization like ISIS or Al Tewagi became official, she would conduct Town Hall meetings in Minneapolis. No matter how difficult it was, she would gather the neighbours, the local police officers, and the office bearers of the school board for a meeting. She would organize discussions and workshops with experts on topics like terror recruitment and its prevention. She had apparently confided in Radhika and lamented that even though it has been twenty-two years since she came to America, she has been unable to comprehend the problems of the newly migrant Sanghaali community.
The news that Martin Luther King, who succumbed to Officer Mendez’s bullet this past month, resembled Mohammad Igal made her sick to her stomach. Officer Mendez’s statement that he thought he was stopping Mohammad Igal when he stopped Martin Luther King upset her even more. More than the fact that her son was a terrorist, what made her very sad was that someone else who had a resemblance to him fell to the police’s bullet.
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